Comment 3 for bug 748141

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii writes:

    > I see your point about adding confusion for new users, and I
    > agree. However, please note that commands are not just for new
    > users. Veteran users that are not bzr developers are also worthy
    > of being catered to by bzr...

Right, that's exactly where *I* (the feeling may be shared or not, I
never asked) have some hesitations about revealing them: they tend to be
lest tested and are certainly not supported as the other commands. If an
implementation change break them, we may just decide to delete them.

    > Also, when you say these commands are fo debugging, you probably
    > mean that this is how they cam into existence.

Mostly, AFAIK.

    > While that is probably true, I would argue that once they do
    > exist, their fate should be decided by their utility for mere
    > mortals, not by the historical curiosities.

This is open to debate indeed,

    > Now for the specific points you made.

    > Commands slated for deletion of course don't need to be
    > documented.

As said above, we may change our mind faster on the hidden commands...

    > Merging this hidden functionality with existing non-hidden
    > commands is also an okay solution.

As jelmer mentioned, this is really what we want to do for 'added' and
such: enhance ls so they become useless.

    > lookup-revision

1 test, but the code is trivial too.

    > and revision-info

Better coverage but tested only against the default format. Ad-hoc, but
may fail with older formats without notice (though if it fail, that
would probably be for a new format and may be fixed for all formats at
that point).

It's also ~designed to accept a revision not in the branch ancestry

    > are handy for showing revision-id given a revno and vice versa. I
    > don't see how "revno" or "version-info" can help here, except for
    > the current tip revision. Am I missing something?

You're right.

Firing 'bzr log' is not an alternative either :)

    > Likewise for find-merge-base and file-id: what other commands can
    > show this information? I agree that this info is probably needed
    > only rarely, but what's wrong with advertising rarely used
    > commands?

Now, showing them if some config option (bzr.help.show_hidden ?) is set
(once and for all) in bazaar.conf (and stay off by default for
newcomers)... I don't see why we shouldn't show them.