Hi,
On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:06:17AM +0000, Ian Hinder wrote:
Why do we need to have this distinction in the first place? Can this be decided when you try to commit instead?
Yes and no. For some repositories we could do this, e.g. for most (all?) of the subversion repositories. The only difference between URL and AUTH_URL there is the encryption which is required for commits. It also does work for anonymous checkouts, it's just a bit slower. At some point we decided to use plan http, since we had to have a district AUTH_URL for other repository types anyway, see below.
For others, like currently used git or hg repositories, the method to obtain the code is completely different depending on whether you want to use write access or not. This is not an issue of the VCS used; subversion has the same issue when used over ssh.
We very likely have to accept that the way to checkout/clone repositories as anonymous user can in practice be different than developer access. The remaining question is only how to, at the same time: (i) Make GetComponents usage easy for new users and (ii) Make GetComponents usage easy for developers as well.
I believe that the current mechanism which doesn't ask with '-a' given and does without is a good solution. New users most probably follow the tutorial using copy&paste anyway, and pick up the option through that. One portion of the tutorial was adapted to that only recently. However, I would be happy to hear about other, better solutions.
Frank