Splitting working dir away from repository. Is it possible?

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Marcin Kasperski <Marcin.Kasperski at softax.com.pl> writes:

  > > I like strong separation between working files and repository...
  > > It's logicaly consistent, at least for me.
  > > It's no logical reasons to have repository under working directory, at
  > > least for me again.
  > 
  > Well, maybe you should reconsider your idea of using DVCS. Mercurial,
  > Git, Bazaar and others are all built around the idea of binding
  > working directories with repository. 

This does not seem to be true about Bazaar. 
From: http://bazaar-vcs.org/Tutorials/CentralizedWorkflow#id8

2.2   Setting up a local Repository

   Bazaar branches generally copy the history information around with
   them, which is part of how you can work in a fully decentralized
   manner. As an optimization, it is possible for related branches to
   combine their storage needs so that you do not need to copy around
   all of this history information whenever you create a new branch.

   The best way to do this is to create a Shared Repository. In general,
   branches will share their storage if they exist in a subdirectory of
   a Shared Repository.  So let's set up a Shared Repository in our home
   directory, thus all branches we create underneath will share their
   history storage.

% bzr init-repo --trees ~


I can see how such a feature is useful: local disk storage is cheap
nowadays, but properly backed up storage on a system that offers
snapshots, redundancy, etc. is still very very expensive.  So it is not
unusual to have access to more limited disk space on such properly
backed up systems.  This situation is quite common. 
Being able to separate the "repository" and the working copy, and to
share the "repository" among branches can be very valuable in such
situations.