Default Editor, WAS: RE: Commit currently broken?

[Sander Striker <st...@apache.org>]

> From: Ben Collins [mailto:bcollins@debian.org]
> Sent: 07 April 2002 01:51

> On Sat, Apr 06, 2002 at 05:07:33PM -0600, cmpilato@collab.net wrote:
> > cmpilato@collab.net writes:
> > 
> > > David Summers <da...@summersoft.fay.ar.us> writes:
> > > 
> > > > OK, setting EDITOR environment variable to vi "fixed" the problem for me 
> > > > and I was able to commit.
> > > > 
> > > > export EDITOR=vi
> > > > 
> > > > Everything else except that is awesome....lots of progress in the last few
> > > > weeks (I especially liked the "svn log" changes).
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks!
> > > >    - David Summers
> > > 
> > > That was the key, thanks.  I just changed the way our $EDITOR stuff
> > > works and forgot to test the case where there was no $EDITOR variable
> > > set.  I'll fix this *right now*.
> > 
> > Actually, I should explain that statement a bit.  On the phone
> > yesterday, gstein, kfogel, sussman and I decided to remove the
> > 'default fallbacks' for the $EDITOR (vi on Unix, notepad on Windows)
> > so if a user doesn't want to be shocked by that popping up in their
> > face, they can simply unset the environment variable.  Instead of
> > getting a default editor, they will get an error message that says
> > that Subversion couldn't determine their external editor, and that
> > they should either set the environment variable or use -m or -F.
> 
> So now instead they will get surprised by the difference between svn and
> every other version control system? I can't think of one system that
> doesn't do this already.

I couldn't agree more.  Why are we moving away from the default
editor anyway?  Because we are afraid some users are never going to find
their way out of vi?  Unsetting the environment variable gives you
an error message that tells you you either need to set it(!), or to
use -m or -F.  IMO this doesn't buy the user much.

Btw, now we have the config system in place, we should add an 'editor'
field in there, together with a 'requirelogmessage = [yes|no]' (or
something like that).
Sidenote: one could argue that requiring the log message is project
specific.

Sander

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Re: Default Editor, WAS: RE: Commit currently broken?

[Peter Mathiasson <pe...@mathiasson.nu>]

On Sun, Apr 07, 2002 at 01:39:07PM +0200, Sander Striker wrote:
> I couldn't agree more.  Why are we moving away from the default
> editor anyway?  Because we are afraid some users are never going to find
> their way out of vi?  Unsetting the environment variable gives you
> an error message that tells you you either need to set it(!), or to
> use -m or -F.  IMO this doesn't buy the user much.

I would say vi as default is a sane choice.

> Btw, now we have the config system in place, we should add an 'editor'
> field in there, together with a 'requirelogmessage = [yes|no]' (or
> something like that).
> Sidenote: one could argue that requiring the log message is project
> specific.

I think it should be project specific (as opposed to per client I
guess).

-- 
Peter Mathiasson, peter at mathiasson dot nu, http://www.mathiasson.nu
GPG Fingerprint: A9A7 F8F6 9821 F415 B066 77F1 7FF5 C2E6 7BF2 F228