Iavor Diatchki wrote:
I use git for a lot of my development... Given the responses though, it sounds like this is a well known problem with darcs with no obvious solution.
Why do you say there is no obvious solution? In fact, Ganesh, representing the Darcs team, responded:
1) a darcs rebase command... very much hope to have it in the next darcs release. Simon M has already tried out an experimental version and was quite positive about it...
2) multi-branch repos... perhaps the release after next...
3) Better performance when there are conflicts... [by upgrading GHC to v2 patches]
4) Better UI around managing conflicts...
5) new patch types that reduce the number of conflicts you get at all
Some of those are already in the works, and all except possibly (5) are known to be within reach. So the answer is yes, this problem is now on the verge of being solved in Darcs. After focusing mostly on performance for a while and achieving huge gains, the Darcs team has turned a significant portion of its attention to the branching problem for some time now, and the fruits of this labor will begin to become available in the next release. VCS discussions tend to spark religious wars in which zealous proponents of one system conveniently ignore the positive points of another in order to push as hard as possible for the adoption of their darling. Standing somewhat on the outside, it seems to me that the discussion about switching VCS has been more than thoroughly exhausted. Even when Darcs was in a far less advanced state than it is in now, the conclusion seemed to be that the best interests of the Haskell community at large are served by remaining with Darcs. So it would be a bit strange if this branching issue, which is a serious issue currently but will likely become a non-issue in a few months time, triggers GHC to abandon Darcs. On the other hand, I suppose GHC HQ can't afford to have a revolt on their hands. So if the majority of people doing the actual work on GHC want to change to git and are willing to put in the effort to make the change, it will probably happen regardless. Regards, Yitz