1185557 - mach mercurial-setup should say what changes it will actually make to .hgrc as part of its prompts

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox Build System :: Mach Core, enhancement)

Description

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

It's hard to evaluate whether the changes being made are OK or not without knowing whether they're _adding_ things to hgrc or _modifying_ things that are already there, and if the latter what the actual modification is.

I realize the prompts are trying to be user-friendly, and to someone who doesn't want to look inside .hgrc they are. They may also be to someone who knows by heart what .hgrc directives produce the effects being described. But for someone who set up a .hgrc at one point (probably with comments about the various pieces and why they are there) and then forgot about the details, including the actual changes that will be made to the .hgrc in the prompt would be quite helpful in terms of figuring out whether they're desired.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

As a note, I think if the prompts did that, you wouldn't have things like bug 1185113 where the developer says they had no idea mercurial-setup was going to make an obviously undesired change and then it did.

Comment 2

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

We already prompt to show a diff of the file before prompting the user to save changes. I guess you are saying this isn't good enough.

I think this is a fair feature request. I doubt we can produce a proper diff as we go. But we can certainly print status messages like "adding extensions.foo=~/.mozbuild/version-control-tools/..." or "modifying diff.git from '1' to '0'."

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> We already prompt to show a diff of the file before prompting the user to save changes.

I never got that far, because I didn't know we did that. :( Once I started being asked questions about stuff that would clearly change hgrc without a sufficiently clear indication of what would change, I just killed the mercurial-setup bit.

The key part for me is knowing what things would get changed based on my answer _before_ I answer....

Comment 4

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Clarify that `mach mercurial-setup` doesn't make changes without prompting; r?smacleod

Bug 1185557 - Clarify that `mach mercurial-setup` doesn't make changes without prompting; r?smacleod

It's been clear from user feedback that people don't realize that `mach
mercurial-setup` doesn't make any changes unless they tell it to.
Reinforce this message in the prompts printed by mach_boostrap.py.

Comment 5

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Only prompt to install progress on Mercurial <3.5; r?smacleod

Bug 1185557 - Only prompt to install progress on Mercurial <3.5; r?smacleod

Progress is enabled by default in Mercurial 3.5. extensions.progress
no-ops. Don't prompt for it on newer Mercurial versions.

Comment 6

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Prompt about bzexport after reviewboard; r?smacleod

Bug 1185557 - Prompt about bzexport after reviewboard; r?smacleod

We want to encourage people to use reviewboard over bzexport.

Comment 7

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Print relevant config options; r?smacleod

Bug 1185557 - Print relevant config options; r?smacleod

Users may want to know what the wizard is changing before they answer
prompts. Add the names of impacted config options to messages so people
can make more informed decisions.

Comment 8

[Steven MacLeod [:smacleod]]

Comment on attachment 8636185 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Clarify that `mach mercurial-setup` doesn't make changes without prompting; r?smacleod

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/13657/#review12321

Ship It!

Comment 9

[Steven MacLeod [:smacleod]]

Comment on attachment 8636186 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Only prompt to install progress on Mercurial <3.5; r?smacleod

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/13659/#review12323

Ship It!

Comment 10

[Steven MacLeod [:smacleod]]

Comment on attachment 8636187 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Prompt about bzexport after reviewboard; r?smacleod

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/13661/#review12325

Ship It!

Comment 11

[Steven MacLeod [:smacleod]]

Comment on attachment 8636188 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 1185557 - Print relevant config options; r?smacleod

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/13663/#review12327

Ship It!

Comment 12

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

url:        https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/136d1ba3e828e929b9ca52bacb24c97ddca7e37b
changeset:  136d1ba3e828e929b9ca52bacb24c97ddca7e37b
user:       Gregory Szorc <[e-mail]>
date:       Tue Jul 21 10:10:22 2015 -0700
description:
Bug 1185557 - Clarify that `mach mercurial-setup` doesn't make changes without prompting; r=smacleod

It's been clear from user feedback that people don't realize that `mach
mercurial-setup` doesn't make any changes unless they tell it to.
Reinforce this message in the prompts printed by mach_boostrap.py.

url:        https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/819fa1eb6e6dbd0ea5b42de4f33060263aea1776
changeset:  819fa1eb6e6dbd0ea5b42de4f33060263aea1776
user:       Gregory Szorc <[e-mail]>
date:       Tue Jul 21 10:10:38 2015 -0700
description:
Bug 1185557 - Only prompt to install progress on Mercurial <3.5; r=smacleod

Progress is enabled by default in Mercurial 3.5. extensions.progress
no-ops. Don't prompt for it on newer Mercurial versions.

url:        https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/6de7988b45c43168d135e3da623d0a78c1dbdc37
changeset:  6de7988b45c43168d135e3da623d0a78c1dbdc37
user:       Gregory Szorc <[e-mail]>
date:       Tue Jul 21 10:10:54 2015 -0700
description:
Bug 1185557 - Prompt about bzexport after reviewboard; r=smacleod

We want to encourage people to use reviewboard over bzexport.

url:        https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/65cbcf817e983b8a2ff0d1365647c26308dfe044
changeset:  65cbcf817e983b8a2ff0d1365647c26308dfe044
user:       Gregory Szorc <[e-mail]>
date:       Tue Jul 21 10:11:09 2015 -0700
description:
Bug 1185557 - Print relevant config options; r=smacleod

Users may want to know what the wizard is changing before they answer
prompts. Add the names of impacted config options to messages so people
can make more informed decisions.

Comment 13

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/136d1ba3e828
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/819fa1eb6e6d
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/6de7988b45c4
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/65cbcf817e98