Currently, giving a new repository for darcs put, pull or push changes
the default repository for darcs pull and push commands.  However,
usually I mostly want to deal with a primary repository ("upstream" /
"central") with pull and push, and only randomly make pull and push
operations from elsewhere.

The interface has sometimes caused irritated situations where I've
pulled in a set of patches from a distant branch or totally unrelated
project, and accidentally then pushed (a bit later) a lot of changes
there by accident.  This is by far the most common way I tend to screw
up with darcs.

Would it be possible to only set the default repository during an
initial get / put, and leave it at that indefinitely?  This would have
been the correct way of operation in all of my situations thus far.

Panu

Hi,

On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 18:59:26 -0000, Panu A Kalliokoski wrote:
> Would it be possible to only set the default repository during an
> initial get / put, and leave it at that indefinitely?  This would have
> been the correct way of operation in all of my situations thus far.

Have a look at the --no-set-defaults switch and the
_darcs/defaults/prefs mechanism

Best,

On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 07:10:54PM -0000, Eric Kow wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 18:59:26 -0000, Panu A Kalliokoski wrote:
> > Would it be possible to only set the default repository during an
> > initial get / put, and leave it at that indefinitely?  This would have
> > been the correct way of operation in all of my situations thus far.
> 
> Have a look at the --no-set-defaults switch and the
> _darcs/defaults/prefs mechanism

Correction:  _darcs/prefs/defaults

(which Eric knows, but a typo here could definitely confuse the user)
-- 
David Roundy
Department of Physics
Oregon State University

On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 07:10:54PM -0000, Eric Kow wrote:
> Have a look at the --no-set-defaults switch and the
> _darcs/defaults/prefs mechanism

Ok, I was unaware of this switch.  I wonder if other people have made
mistakes of the same kind, and whether it would be desirable to change
push and pull to use --no-set-default by default.

Panu

[snip]
> Would it be possible to only set the default repository during an
> initial get / put, and leave it at that indefinitely?  This would have
> been the correct way of operation in all of my situations thus far.

You can accomplish this pretty much by adding these two lines to your
~/.darcs/defaults:

  pull no-set-default
  push no-set-default

That said, I agree wholeheartedly that the current behaviour is the
inverted and contrary to the way I, and every developer I know, use a
version control system.

We typically work with a single upstream, occasionally cherry-picking
from other branches or shuttling patches off to special release
branches, but generally "push" and "pull" *need* to remain consistent.

This is not the only bad default in Darcs; --set-scripts-executable
and --look-for-adds both enable behaviour that other version control
systems consider dead obvious.

These are also a points of confusion which I have noticed will trip up
new users. Helping these people set up a sane config file works, and I
do that a lot, but the default settings ought to be sane from the get
go.

Alexander.

Excerpts from Alexander Staubo's message of Tue Oct 30 21:13:35 +0100 2007:
> On 10/30/07, Panu A Kalliokoski <bugs@darcs.net> wrote:
> > Currently, giving a new repository for darcs put, pull or push changes
> > the default repository for darcs pull and push commands.  However,
> > usually I mostly want to deal with a primary repository ("upstream" /
> > "central") with pull and push, and only randomly make pull and push
> > operations from elsewhere.
> [snip]
> > Would it be possible to only set the default repository during an
> > initial get / put, and leave it at that indefinitely?  This would have
> > been the correct way of operation in all of my situations thus far.
> 
> You can accomplish this pretty much by adding these two lines to your
> ~/.darcs/defaults:
> 
>   pull no-set-default
>   push no-set-default
> 
> That said, I agree wholeheartedly that the current behaviour is the
> inverted and contrary to the way I, and every developer I know, use a
> version control system.
> 
> We typically work with a single upstream, occasionally cherry-picking
> from other branches or shuttling patches off to special release
> branches, but generally "push" and "pull" *need* to remain consistent.
> 
> This is not the only bad default in Darcs; --set-scripts-executable
> and --look-for-adds both enable behaviour that other version control
> systems consider dead obvious.
> 
> These are also a points of confusion which I have noticed will trip up
> new users. Helping these people set up a sane config file works, and I
> do that a lot, but the default settings ought to be sane from the get
> go.
> 

I   would   also   prefer  these  default  values  to  be  inverted  (backward
compatibility...  still  an  issue).  Hopefully  ~/.darcs/defaults  make  this
easier.

This was discussed in detail a couple of years ago.  Basically, David believes
that the current default behaviour is more intuitive and easier to explain.

I happen to disagree with David, so I implemented the --no-set-default option,
and have

  ALL no-set-default

in my ~/.darcs/defaults .

                                                 Juliusz

P.S. I have other disagreements with Darcs' default defaults, so my full
defaults file reads

  ALL no-set-default
  ALL no-test
  send unified