On 14 Feb 2022, Julian Foad wrote:
Karl, thanks for bringing a user-focused perspective to the
naming. In
Subversion's UI we will not necessarily expose any name for the
feature,
but we might, e.g. in a configuration file or in help text. In
describing what's new in 1.15 people will certainly start using
some
short name for the feature and it will be helpful if we pick a
memorable
and user-comprehensible one to start with.
Agree with all your concerns below, but we do have to pick a name
soon, because there's going to be *some* UI for accessing this
feature, right?
That is, even in MVP where the feature is just a non-changeable
per-WC-at-checkout-time decision about whether pristines are
cached or not, there has to be some way for the user to specify at
checkout time what that decision actually *is* for a given WC.
That could be done via a command-line option, or via something in
a config file, but whatever it is, it's going to involve having a
name by which to call the feature.
In this case the term "binary, large object" is an apt portrayal
of the
main use case. (I'll set aside my distaste for such inelegant
backronyms.) However, the term is used (I think) primarily in
software
developer circles, which covers a significant portion but perhaps
not
vast majority of Subversion users. So it might not be the best.
Similarly, casual Subversion users don't really need to know the
terms
"pristine" and "text base" before they become "power users",
although if
they think about this feature at all then they will obviously
become
aware of the concept, if not those names.
Agreed.
Johan, I like and agree with your perspective of this pristines
management as one aspect of caching repository content in
general, with
scope for further variations. I am not sure if that is the best
way to
present it to users at this stage. Perhaps this perspective fits
better
in a "road map" that devs and users interested in further
development
can read.
Ideas:
- "Option to optimize a checkout for minimal disk space
rather than
minimal network traffic."
- "50% off. Unlimited offer. Buy it now. Shrink your
checkouts to
half the size.* (Small print: *Compared to our previous
checkouts which
cost double their effective size. Network subscription
required.)"
ROTFL :-). I'll take #2 with a side of onion rings, please.
Those are *descriptions*, for the release notes and other
documentation, but we will still need a *name* too, to use in the
command-line flag (or config option, whatever).
Best regards,
-Karl
