3 patches for repository http://darcs.net/screened:

Just trying to work out a way to deal with the recent outbreak of "helpful"
messages...

Three ideas used here are
 * Alexey's indentation idea
 * friendly 'information-only' messages should be given uniform/visible marking
   (HINT)
 * we should not focus on what darcs tried to do, but what you the user should
   do or expect

These aren't self-screened partly because I'm half-expecting a conflict with
Dmitry's 404 patches and also because folks may want to bat this around a bit.

Thu Nov 18 16:36:34 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey@darcs.net>
  * Label --set-default note as a HINT.
  
  The goal is to uniformly mark all non-essential "helpful" prompts
  in a recognisable way.  The underlying message is "relax!"

Thu Nov 18 17:12:26 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey@darcs.net>
  * Friendlier _darcs/inventory HINT message.
  The idea is to focus on concrete actions or expectations, no internals!

| $ darcs get /tmp/chxsarchsae
| 
| darcs failed:  Not a repository: /tmp/chxsarchsae (/tmp/chxsarchsae/_darcs/inventory: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory))
| 
| HINT: Check with the repository owner to see if the following files
|       are readable:
| 
|         1. _darcs/format    - might not exist; that's OK
|         2. _darcs/inventory - should exist be if #1 is missing
|         3. _darcs/hashed_inventory - should exist if #2 is missing
| 
|       It's OK if they just don't exist.

Thu Nov 18 17:14:46 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey@darcs.net>
  * Label the unreachable repository note as a HINT.

| HINT: I could not reach the following repositories:
|         /home/kowey/PROJECTS/blalrch
|         /home/kowey/PROJECTS/arghle-bagle
|       If you're not using them, you should probably delete
|       the corresponding entries from _darcs/prefs/sources.


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Attachments

• label-__set_default-note-as-a-hint_.dpatch
• unnamed

Hi,

Eric Kow <bugs@darcs.net> writes:

> Thu Nov 18 16:36:34 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey@darcs.net>
> | $ darcs get /tmp/chxsarchsae
> | 
> | darcs failed:  Not a repository: /tmp/chxsarchsae (/tmp/chxsarchsae/_darcs/inventory: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory))
> | 
> | HINT: Check with the repository owner to see if the following files
> |       are readable:
> | 
> |         1. _darcs/format    - might not exist; that's OK
> |         2. _darcs/inventory - should exist be if #1 is missing
> |         3. _darcs/hashed_inventory - should exist if #2 is missing
> | 
> |       It's OK if they just don't exist.

This looks pretty nice, *but*: what does "It's OK if they just don't
exist" mean? It's obviously *not* OK, since the thing didn't work
right...

Also: it's nice that the HINT is pretty, but the error above it is
horrible. It's unreadable, redundant and long. So I'd propose:

ERROR: Not a repository: /tmp/chxsarchsae.
       Error opening _darcs/inventory: No such file or directory.

 HINT: ...

We have been hiding from the exception reporting code for way too
long... Fixing our error reports would account for a huge leap in
usability, IMHO. (Cf. the confusing and ugly "could not find file"
errors.)

Also, your hint text seems to be misleading, since the exception is
about inventory, and your text made me believe that if inventory does
not exist, the last attempt is at hashed_inventory. From the exception,
this doesn't seem to be the case. (But I could be mistaken.)

>
> Thu Nov 18 17:14:46 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey@darcs.net>
>   * Label the unreachable repository note as a HINT.
>
> | HINT: I could not reach the following repositories:
> |         /home/kowey/PROJECTS/blalrch
> |         /home/kowey/PROJECTS/arghle-bagle
> |       If you're not using them, you should probably delete
> |       the corresponding entries from _darcs/prefs/sources.
Good.

> This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security
> System on behalf of the University of Brighton.
> For more information see http://www.brighton.ac.uk/is/spam/
Gosh! You should tell your university how wrong this is. : - )

Yours,
   Petr.

Whoops, I forgot to set subject on my follow-up which became patch477

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 21:12:45 +0100, Petr Rockai wrote:
> This looks pretty nice, *but*: what does "It's OK if they just don't
> exist" mean? It's obviously *not* OK, since the thing didn't work
> right...

Whoops! Early draft detritus

> Also: it's nice that the HINT is pretty, but the error above it is
> horrible. It's unreadable, redundant and long. So I'd propose:
> 
> ERROR: Not a repository: /tmp/chxsarchsae.
>        Error opening _darcs/inventory: No such file or directory.

To be continued in patch477

> We have been hiding from the exception reporting code for way too
> long... Fixing our error reports would account for a huge leap in
> usability, IMHO. (Cf. the confusing and ugly "could not find file"
> errors.)

You'll get a big +1 from me on that

> Also, your hint text seems to be misleading, since the exception is
> about inventory, and your text made me believe that if inventory does
> not exist, the last attempt is at hashed_inventory. From the exception,
> this doesn't seem to be the case. (But I could be mistaken.)

I think it's acceptable to stray from implementation detail.

> > This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security
> > System on behalf of the University of Brighton.
> > For more information see http://www.brighton.ac.uk/is/spam/
> Gosh! You should tell your university how wrong this is. : - )

Hah, if only they'd listen.  I don't blame them for focusing on
the need for for 22,000 Windows users not to get phished, instead
of the desire for one nerd to have his messages tampered with.
MessageLabs is normally clever enough to detect that it shouldn't
mess with signed or encrypted messages though (except when it isn't)

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
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