"named branches" vs "bookmarks" FUD

[anatoly techtonik]

I feel fear when touching named branches in Mercurial.
I tried to track it down:


 "Many people don’t like cluttering up changeset metadata with branch
names, especially if they’re small branches that are going to be
merged pretty quickly."
http://stevelosh.com/blog/2009/08/a-guide-to-branching-in-mercurial/#branching-with-named-branches

fear 1. cluttering changeset metadata


$ hg branch versions
marked working directory as branch versions
(branches are permanent and global, did you want a bookmark?)


fear 2. warning
uncertainty 1. permanent and global are bad

"it is almost never a good idea to use this facility for short-term
branching, since branches created this way are inherently “eternal”"
http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/BranchingExplained
pointed by
http://bryan-murdock.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-is-so-wrong-with-mercurials-named.html

fear 3. named branches are inherently "eternal"
fear 4. inherently "eternal" is evil
uncertainty 2. named branches are bad for short-term branching


So, looking at all these sources of *semi-official* FUD, I wonder -
are there some inherent problems with Mercurial internals that affect
performance or other aspects that make Mercurial developers impose
specific workflow (avoid short-term named branched) on its users?

Otherwise I don't see why people should be discouraged of using them.
Tagging series of changesets with meaningful names makes project history
better, not worse.
--
anatoly t.