What do you do with MQ?

[Matt Mackall]

On Tue, 2011-12-13 at 12:58 -0500, Sam Steingold wrote:
> > * Martin Geisler <zt at nentbfg.pbz> [2011-12-13 18:25:42 +0100]:
> >
> > Sam Steingold <sds at gnu.org> writes:
> >
> >>> * Arne Babenhauserheide <near_ono at jro.qr> [2011-12-13 06:46:57 +0100]:
> >>>
> >>> * shelve away changes, commit something else, get them back.
> >>>    hg qnew stash-work-in-progress; hg qpop
> >>>    hg qpush; hg qfinish tip; hg strip -k tip
> >
> > I don't like the last line -- it feels quite unnatural to me to finish a
> > patch just to strip it. I've certainly never used mq like that. Somehow,
> > I feel that people that insist on getting the changes "out" of mq have
> > misunderstood it -- you can just keep the changes in mq and work with
> > them there.
> >
> > Infact, when you start using mq like this, I feel it's very likely that
> > you'll start having several such stashed commits around as separate
> > patches and so you need to keep the patches.
> 
> see, you do no like the instructions above, so you would clearly be upset
> if I were to copy they verbatim into the documentation.
> 
> >> now, could someone PLEASE put these incantations in both
> >>
> >> -- http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/GitConcepts
> >> -- http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/MqExtension
> >
> > It is a wiki, so you're free to edit it yourself. You'll be asked to
> > create an account if you don't already have one.
> 
> you are the mercurial expert, not me.
> how can you expect me to write a good manual?!

You're right, it's obviously impossible for a non-expert to write a good
summary. Reminds me: time for my annual Wikipedia donation.

Given that expertise is finite, what do you think is the best use of it
is: adding new features, fixing bugs, answering user questions, or
improving the wiki? 

I think it's extremely reasonable to ask that users contribute summaries
to the wiki, and it's occasionally the price I ask for helping someone
with something tricky. Stuff like this:

http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/ManuallyUnpackingStripBundle

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.