Re: [Monotone-devel] serialization format

[Stephen Leake]

Markus Wanner <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello Stephen,
>
> thanks for your feedback.
>
> On 04/04/2016 06:58 PM, Stephen Leake wrote:
>> Human readable makes testing and developing new features much easier. If
>> we use binary, we will need a separate tool that translates that to
>> readable, which is then another source of bugs (or the same source, just
>> in a different place).
>
> Yeah, that's a point. However, I'd also argue that we should target the
> user and not the developer. And from a user's perspective, isn't
> monotone the very tool that does that kind of translation?
>
> Or put another way: Do *users* really care what serialization format
> monotone uses underneath?

No, users don't care (as long as the tools work).

Caveat; if they have to compose an email with the Monotone output (to
send it somewhere), ASCII text is safer than binary.

But that means they have no opinion on basic_io vs json, either.

Unless there are _other_ tools (not provided by monotone) that users
could use with Monotone output if it was other than basic_io.


-- 
-- Stephe