[cvsnt] Re: Latest Updates

[Oliver Giesen]

> > The branch itself or its tip revision?
> > AFAICT, it's the revision.
> >
> Yes, but you could say that about any branch :)

Sure, in the majority of cases a branch name and a tag that's pointing at
the tip revision of that branch could be used interchangeably but that does
not make them semantically the same thing. The only reason why you could use
them interchangeably is that by definition specifying a branch where a
tag/revision is required will get you the latest revision on that branch.

Seeing that you can NOT commit to HEAD, and going by the gut feeling that a
Head is something that's at the end/top of something rather than the
something itself, I'm still prefering the view that HEAD is a symbolic name
for a single revision instead of a branch/trunk. What we need is not
additional meaning for HEAD, what we need is a symbolic name for the base
development line, i.e. the trunk.


> If foo:yesterday is valid, why not HEAD:yesterday?

foo:yesterday is only valid if foo is a branch, or isn't it? At least that's
the only situation where it makes sense IMO. What would be the point in
amending a tag filter with a date constraint? In contrast to a branch name a
tag already is distinct in itself in that it uniquely identifies exactly one
revision of any given file (or none at all). Adding a date in the mix could
only affect whether the tagged revision gets checked out or not (if the
tagged revision was committed only after the specified date).


> (with the caveat the if you've changed the default branch it'll be the
> wrong one, but few people ever do that).

Hmm, don't like that stance...


> I need to generalize the parsing one day, to allow that kind of syntax
> everywhere (not just update) and put in the HEAD.1, foo.1 kind of syntax.

I'm all for the BranchName.# syntax to replace the current revision
numbering scheme. I'd just prefer the trunk not be named HEAD but something
more "trunky", like TRUNK or MAIN...

Cheers,

-- 
Oliver
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