darcs weekly news #91

News and discussions
--------------------
1. Ganesh uploaded a third beta of Darcs 2.8:

   * http://lists.osuosl.org/pipermail/darcs-users/2012-January/026364.html

2. The next Darcs Sprint has a tentative date and place of 31 march,
   Southampton. Please annotate yourself on the wiki to participate:

   * http://wiki.darcs.net/Sprints/2012-03

Issues resolved in the last week (1)
------------------------------------
issue1470 Johannes Weiss
 * Allow to amend-record patch by removing some hunks
 * http://bugs.darcs.net/issue1470

Patches applied in the last week (11)
-------------------------------------
2012-01-15 Ganesh Sittampalam
 - add amend-unrecord alias
 - TAG 2.7.98.3
 - change version to 2.7.98.3 (2.8 beta 3)
 - clean out dist folder from sdist tarball
 - use cabal unpack instead of tar -x when testing
 - TAG 2.7.98.2
 - Change version to 2.7.98.2 (2.8 beta 2)
 - fill out options for amend-record --unrecord and add test
 - rename amend-record's --rollback option to --unrecord

feedback on darcs conflict resolution

Hi all,

I got some fairly extensive feedback on darcs conflicts in a team and am forwarding it with the author's
permission. Basically situation is that author is comfortable with Darcs but their team are not.

So my questions are basically more along the lines of: what can Darcs do to be more obvious?

Sounds like helpful stuff below.  Look especially at the two situations below.  Seems like the perfect sort
of thing to mine as guiding scenarios.

Anonymised by default, but author is copied in case they want to respond or follow up.

Thanks,

Eric

PS. I think Petr's work on darcs annotate UI will address some of the issues

Begin forwarded message:
> 
> The actual resolving conflicts in darcs is pretty much a breeze.  Find
> v v v, chose what parts of the one or two versions you want to keep,
> record a new patch.  All of that is fine.  Even my slowest developer
> understands that.  The problem has to do with metadata associated with
> the patch and how to handle exceptional cases in the workflow.  To
> give you some background we have a setup like this:
> 
> one sandbox repo per developer (this is where patches are recorded)
> a development repo (this is where developers can share code)
> a deploy repo (this is where developers push code that is ready for

Re: 2.8 beta 3 (builds on FreeBSD 8.1 with GHC 6.10.4, fails on Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid)

On 01/19/2012 02:35 AM, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've uploaded darcs 2.8 beta 3 to hackage. You can install it with
> 'cabal install darcs-beta'.
> 
> The only change since beta 2 is to fix a problem with the package
> generation. If you managed to install beta 2 despite that problem, then
> there's nothing new in beta 3.
> 
> The draft changelog at http://wiki.darcs.net/changes%20since%202.5 is
> now mostly complete.

Thanks for your work on this Ganesh.

I was previously affected by the packaging problem, and have confirmed
that I can now build this beta on FreeBSD 8.1 with GHC 6.10.4.

However, it fails to build on Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" with GHC 6.12.1,
because it can't find some curses headers. Upgrading cabal-install with
"cabal install cabal-install" does not help.

Below is the output I'm getting. It refers to "config.log", but I can't
find this file below .cabal .

I assume there is some curses "-dev" package that needs to be installed,
but I'm not sure which one, and the manual suggests no further packages
will be required:

http://www.darcs.net/manual/Building_darcs.html

Re: feedback on darcs conflict resolution

I use darcs in a small team and these challeges sound familiar. I also
introduced darcs to my team, so I relate to the poster's position. We
also track patches with ticket numbers and work in a world of changing
priorities.

We deal with variations of unwanted dependencies frequently. There are
various resolutions depending on the situations. Solutions we use:

1. Developers understand the particular case and solve it themselves.
2. An uncommon or more complicated solution with several steps is
documented on the wiki
3. The team "darcs expert" is asked to handle it. (Me)

We have very little about darcs on the wiki, as there are few cases that
are especially challenging with it.

The "darcs expert" approach used fairly often. I make a judgment call
about whether the issue at had is a good match for trying to train the
particular developer on at that moment., or whether to address it
myself.

Years later, I'm still called on to deal with some uncommon cases, but
other developers understand and can address most other cases now. (I'm
not suggesting that takes years to figure these things out, just that I
don't expect everyone to ever quit asking for help completely).

We also try to improve the situation at a system level:

- Work with the customer to allow us to finish what we start, and keep

Re: feedback on darcs conflict resolution

>> We have a ticketing system.  A developer must have a ticket to change
>> code.  When he or she records code, the first part of the commit
>> message must be the ticket number.

I wrote a small script to help with this workflow a while back: you can 
get it from https://github.com/pozorvlak/ticket [Yeah, GitHub, sorry :)]
It's not a full-fledged ticket tracking system or trac plugin or 
anything, but it might be of use.

HTH,
Miles

darcs newbie questions

Before I ask my questions, I wanted to compliment everyone on darcs'
progress.  I used darcs for a couple months six years ago and stopped
because of various performance problems.  I've been trying it again
for the last couple days and it's much faster.  The wikibook
Understanding Darcs is also a great resource.  My thanks to all
involved.

For the following questions, I'm using darcs 2.5.2 installed from
Hackage via cabal.

Is it possible to colorize diff command output?  I've set
DARCS_ALWAYS_COLOR=1 and DARCS_DO_COLOR_LINES=1.  The output of `darcs
whatsnew` has color but `darcs diff --unified` is black and white.
I'd like for them both to have color.

Why does `darcs record --edit-long-comment` prompt for the patch name?
 It seems redundant to prompt for the name and then open an editor
where one can enter the name as well.  For now, I've added the
following to ~/.darcs/defaults to skip the prompt.  Is there a better
way?

    record edit-long-comment
    record patch-name ...

Is it possible for `darcs changes` to use $DARCS_PAGER?  For example,
if I run `env DARCS_PAGER='less -R -F' darcs changes` the pager is not
used.  Since that command's output can be very long, automatically
invoking a pager would be convenient.

In other version control tools, I will often look through recent

Re: 2.8 beta 3 (builds on FreeBSD 8.1 with GHC 6.10.4, fails on Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid)

libncurses5-dev provides curses.h.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/libncurses5-dev

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 6:31 PM, Mark Stosberg <mark <at> summersault.com> wrote:
> On 01/19/2012 02:35 AM, Ganesh Sittampalam wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've uploaded darcs 2.8 beta 3 to hackage. You can install it with
>> 'cabal install darcs-beta'.
>>
>> The only change since beta 2 is to fix a problem with the package
>> generation. If you managed to install beta 2 despite that problem, then
>> there's nothing new in beta 3.
>>
>> The draft changelog at http://wiki.darcs.net/changes%20since%202.5 is
>> now mostly complete.
>
> Thanks for your work on this Ganesh.
>
> I was previously affected by the packaging problem, and have confirmed
> that I can now build this beta on FreeBSD 8.1 with GHC 6.10.4.
>
> However, it fails to build on Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" with GHC 6.12.1,
> because it can't find some curses headers. Upgrading cabal-install with
> "cabal install cabal-install" does not help.
>
> Below is the output I'm getting. It refers to "config.log", but I can't
> find this file below .cabal .
>
> I assume there is some curses "-dev" package that needs to be installed,

Re: darcs newbie questions

Hi Michael,

I'm also only Darcs user / beginner but I think I can answer some of your questions, see in line. 

<at> other darcs users: please do not consider all questions from Michael answered, there are still open questions I don't know the answers :)

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:49 PM, Michael Hendricks <michael <at> ndrix.org> wrote:

Is it possible to colorize diff command output?  I've set
DARCS_ALWAYS_COLOR=1 and DARCS_DO_COLOR_LINES=1.  The output of `darcs
whatsnew` has color but `darcs diff --unified` is black and white.
I'd like for them both to have color.

I don't think current diff output support colors like darcs changes  your  question can be considered as a new feature request

Anyway, an external program like `vim` can be used for patches in color, e.g. command like following (on Linux):

$ darcs diff -u | vim -

 

Related to the previous question: `darcs diff -n 123` is quite a bit
slower than `darcs changes -v`, even though the latter shows the patch
inline.  Is the performance decrease because diff has to find context
lines?  If I don't care about context lines, can I somehow invoke diff
so it quickly shows me the same patch as `changes -v`?

At this time realization of `darcs diff` [1] uses external diff utility (possibly configured user specific, e.g. graphical) which doesn't understand Darcs patch format  - native representation in repository. For that reason darcs prepares versions of the files and invoke external diff on them - expensive operations. 

I can not find any option for `darcs changes` to show patches in equal form like `darcs diff`. 

I guess (since I'm not expert on this) the first one dumps patches in dpatch format which is  different in syntax but also in semantics - specific to darcs (hunks). 

Unrelated and actually upside-down what you asked `darcs annotate` [2] can show patches with context like `darcs diff` but in `darcs changes` format.

With following command: 

$ darcs annotate -u -n 123

or with internal patch hash identifier (display in `darcs changes --xml`):

$ darcs annotate -u --match='hash 20091223224749-b86b6-9a22095fd17d8c87b50bcab0b3e007ad7e1013b3'

Rado

[1] http://darcs.net/manual/Darcs_commands.html#SECTION006101000000000000000

[2] http://darcs.net/manual/Darcs_commands.html#SECTION006102000000000000000

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Re: darcs newbie questions

On 02/17/2012 10:49 PM, Michael Hendricks wrote:
> [...]
> For the following questions, I'm using darcs 2.5.2 installed from
> Hackage via cabal.
>
> Is it possible to colorize diff command output?  I've set
> DARCS_ALWAYS_COLOR=1 and DARCS_DO_COLOR_LINES=1.  The output of `darcs
> whatsnew` has color but `darcs diff --unified` is black and white.
> I'd like for them both to have color.

I use

$ darcs diff -u | pygmentize -l diff

$ darcs diff -u | colordiff
should work as well.

> [...]
> In other version control tools, I will often look through recent
> changes, find one that's interesting and then display its patch.
> Subversion's log command displays a revision number and one can do
> `svn diff -c 1234` to see the patch.  Git`s log command shows a commit
> hash allowing one to run `git show abcde123` to see the patch.  The
> best I've found in darcs is `darcs changes --number` followed by
> `darcs diff -n 1234`.  Do patches have a more permanent identifier
> that I should be using instead?

For this workflow, couldn't you just use

$ darcs changes --interactive

? You wouldn't even have to remember a number.

 > [...]

-- Steffen

darcs hacking sprints (9 Mar, Argentina; 30 Mar-1 Apr, UK)

Hi everybody,

We'll be hosting a couple of Darcs hacking sprints in the beginning and end of March.

http://wiki.darcs.net/Sprints/2012-03

The first will be on Friday, the 9th of March, in Córdoba, Argentina.  Guillaume Hoffmann will be helping
new developers to get started with Darcs hacking on some starter tasks.

The second will be from Friday to Sunday 30 March to 1 April, in Southampton, UK.  I'll be there, along with
Owen Stephens from our 2011 GSoC project and hopefully some other denizens of the #darcs IRC channel   In
the UK sprint, you can take part in planning the 2012 Google Summer of Code and help us to flesh out a strategy
for getting from here to Darcs 3.  Some of us are even planning to work on prototypes for some proposed new
conflict management ideas, so it should be fun.

Sprints are for anybody who wants to help out with Darcs development in any way, and if you're not already a
seasoned Darcs developer, they are a great chance to get your feet wet with the project.  We do have a travel
fund to help you get to the sprint (please let us know in advance so that we can budget accordingly.)

Finally, if you can't make it to the sprint or join us online, you can also help by donating to the project so
that other people can travel.

http://darcs.net/donations.html

Thanks, all!

--

-- 
Eric Kow <http://erickow.com>

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