On Tue, Dec 04, 2018 at 03:04:10PM -0600, Chris Muller wrote:
> Hi Marcel,
> 
> You were away when we had some discussions, so you missed some good analysis:
> 
> > <offtopic> Anyway, there is no such thing as "garbage version in the
> > ancestry". This is not George Orwell's 1984 where people dictate or rewrite
> > history. History becomes what has happened. If a database (back-end) or
> > algorithm gets confused with this kind of events, then that database has to
> > be fixed. Not the data. :-) Just my two cents. </offtopic>
> 
> I get you.  I've liked the freedom to shoot-from-the-hip and then just
> go back and fix it since years ago when doing so got me in trouble
> with "dev process" police.  It feels natural, and a fit for us and our
> dynamic system.
> 
> But, "the database" must be carried by all current and
> future Squeak users.  Every unnecessary commit bloats everyone's
> current and future image files, including in RAM, and every future
> .mcz file after that one, of which there are multple copies of each
> (package-cache, etc.).  Add up all that duplication, and single one 2K
> commit quickly becomes a 2MB impact to every current and future Squeak
> users HD, RAM and network transportation.  Forever.
> 
> So how can we "fix" this?  I proposed the MCInfoProxy solution several
> years ago, but that only addresses the in-image portion, and it wasn't
> well-received anyway.
> 
> I think Dave's new "Reparent" button is the best go-to right now.
> That way, we can have the cowboy-style dev process want and then
> "squash" out the interim versions into one pretty version that
> concisely describes the final product.

I am replying here because my name was mentioned. I previously explained
my use case for the "Reparent" button:

  http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2018-November/200556.html

I did not intend it as a tool to encourage modifications to the
trunk update stream, and I do not support using it for that purpose.

I have previously said, and I will repeat it here, that I agree
with Marcel and others that the version history in trunk must be
considered write-only. It should be modified only the case of an
emergency situation in which the update stream is broken. Period.

Dave

p.s. "Shoot from the hip" and "cowboy <whatever>" are American
English vernacular based on our cultural mythologies. They imply
both positive and negative things. The positive is "follow your
instincts and make great things happen". The negative implies
following uncontrolled instincts with unpredictable outcomes. Some
people would consider "cowboy-style" to be a compliment, and others
might consider it an insult. It is usually a little of both.

We also have the phrase "straight shooter" which means "realiable,
trustworthy, honest and straighforward", as contrasted with a
less reliable "shoot from the hip" sort of person. Please don't
ask me to explain why we need that many guns to describe one
another, I guess it's just an American thing.