Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:07:55 -0800 From: Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org> To: Garrett Wollman <wollman@bimajority.org> Cc: svn-src-head@FreeBSD.org, svn-src-all@FreeBSD.org, src-committers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: svn: head/usr.sbin/mergemaster Message-ID: <495E9E4B.8030905@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <18782.37537.775290.682466@hergotha.csail.mit.edu> References: <200901011055.n01AtQaN052763@svn.freebsd.org> <495DB15B.8040908@FreeBSD.org> <495DB9B6.4030801@FreeBSD.org> <495DC5AF.3050908@FreeBSD.org> <495E91F8.3010706@FreeBSD.org> <18782.37537.775290.682466@hergotha.csail.mit.edu>
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Garrett Wollman wrote:
> <<On Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:15:20 -0800, Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org> said:
>
>> As I said in my first post, if there is overwhelming demand for this
>> down the road that is not met by the existing solutions I'll consider
>> adding a better implementation as an option, off by default.
>
> It would be much better if the options that *nearly every user will
> want to use* are set correctly by default.
1. Past experience indicates that your average _developer_ is not very
good at estimating what the average _user_ will want as the default.
2. The needs of developers are considerably different than the needs
of the average user.
3. Many "power user" options have been added over the years, but they
are just that, options.
4. I have said literally from day 1 that mergemaster should not ever
change a file on a user's system without them taking an affirmative
step for it to do so. Whether you agree with that idea or not, it is
an expectation that I do not want to mess with.
> I have to look at the man
> page every time I update a system to remind myself what is that magic
> option that makes mergemaster do the right thing with files I haven't
> changed.
Given the number of help requests I get for mergemaster that are
already answered in the man page, I do not regard this as all that big
of a problem. :) But seriously folks, have you read all the way down
to the part about the ability to use an rc file to store your commonly
used options?
Doug
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