[Haskell-cafe] Re: poll: how can we help you contribute to darcs?

[Ben Franksen]

Ketil Malde wrote:
> The consequences of moving to the darcs-2 format are a bit unclear to
> me. For instance, I'd like to keep my main (export) repo in darcs-1
> format, in order to make it as accessible as possible (Ubuntu still
> ships with darcs-1.0.9, and that's a fairly cutting edge
> distribution.)  Can I convert my working repos to darcs-2?  

No. You cannot push or pull between darcs-2 format repos and darcs-1 or
hashed format repos. This might not be optimal but is understandable, since
the theory underlying the darcs-2 repository format is different.

The more important problem is that conversion to darcs-2 format doesn't
support multiple branches at all. Some people recommend the use of tailor
for this. However, on some of our repositories this fails to produce
correct results, or crashes somewhere during the conversion. I have tried
it and it is an endless frustration.

BTW, this is a point where projects (such as darcs) cannot be careful
enough: migration paths simply /must/ exists. This should have been top
priority and a milestone for the release of darcs-2.0. As it is, I have
asked twice on the darcs-users list how to convert multible branches before
I even got a single reply. I had the impression the remaining developers
are feeling almost as helpless as me.

> Should I?

No. 

> How about darcs-hashed?

Yes, darcs-hashed can be used together with darcs-1 repos. This works fine,
IME.

>  In short, I'd like to see examples of
> recommended migration strategies, and associated benefits.

Me too.

Cheers
Ben