Heads from merged branches

[Matt Mackall]

On Thu, 2013-12-05 at 06:06 +0300, anatoly techtonik wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 10:58 PM, Pierre-Yves David
> <pierre-yves.david at ens-lyon.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 02, 2013 at 10:36:21PM +0300, anatoly techtonik wrote:
> >> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Pierre-Yves David
> >> <pierre-yves.david at ens-lyon.org> wrote:
> >> > On 12/01/2013 10:36 PM, Mathieu Courtois wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Or you can enable default options:
> >> >>
> >> >> [defaults]
> >> >> heads = --topo
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Default options are a discouraged practice:
> >> >
> >> > Defaults are a bad idea. They are deprecated. Don't use them. Don't
> >> > recommend them. Forget they existed. Use aliases.
> >> >
> >> > More details on this on the related wiki page:
> >> > http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/Defaults
> >>
> >> An interesting point. I guess changing logical behaviour to default
> >> will also break automation, so it will never happen.
> >
> > Exactly.
> >
> > I recommend the reading ot this: http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/CompatibilityRules
> 
> I guess that then the only way to get VCS for humans is to write a
> shim app with legit [1] interface. Can such app with filtered API and
> polished user experience be provided by Mercurial project itself?

Is it possible that no one in this thread has told you that the current
behavior is the correct and desired behavior? This is in fact one of the
very few places we've intentionally BROKEN the backward compatibility
promise, precisely to switch from reporting topological heads to
reporting branch heads.

We did that after a lengthy discussion at the 1.5 sprint and the only
person who's complained in all the years since is a particular Git user
who now mysteriously struggles with adding a single extra command line
flag (PTSD?). Meanwhile, the ceaseless questions about finding branch
heads we had prior to 1.5 have vanished, so I'm pretty confident we made
the right UI choice.

If you don't want to type -t, use an alias. Move on, please.

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.