CONTRIBUTORS

repository: define interface for local repositories

Per discussions on the mailing list and at the 4.4 and 4.6 sprints,
we want to start defining interfaces for local repository primitives
so that we a) have a better idea of what the formal interface for
various types is b) can more easily introduce alternate implementations
of various components (e.g. in Rust).

We have previously implemented interfaces that declare the peer and
wire protocol APIs using the abc module.

This commit introduces a monolithic interface for the localrepository
class. It uses zope.interface - not abc - for defining and declaring
the interface.

The newly defined "completelocalrepository" interface is objectively
horrible. It is based on what is actually in localrepository and
doesn't represent a reasonable interface definition IMO. There's lots
of... unwanted garbage in the interface. In other words, it reflects
the horrible state of the localrepository "god object." But this is
fine: a goal of this commit is to get the interface defined so that
we have an interface. Future commits can refactor the interface
into sub-interfaces, remove unwanted public attributes, etc.

I attempted to define reasonable docstrings for the various interface
members. But there are so many of them and I didn't know what some are
used for. So I was lazy in a number of places and didn't write
docstrings or detailed usage docs.

Also, the members of the interface are defined in the order they are
declared in localrepo.py. This revealed that the grouping of things
in localrepo.py is... odd.

The localrepository class now declares that it implements our newly
defined interface. Unlike abc, zope.interface doesn't check interface
conformance at type creation time (abc uses __metaclass__ magic to
validate interface conformance when a type is created - usually at
module import time). It does provide some functions for validating
class and object conformance with declared interfaces. We add these
checks to test-check-interfaces.py. We /could/ validate at run-time.
But we hold off for now. (I'm a bit scared of doing that because of
the various ways extensions monkeypatch repo instances.)

After this commit, test-check-interfaces.py will fail if the set of
public attributes on the localrepository class or instances change
without corresponding updates to the interface. This is by design.

Differential Revision: https://phab.mercurial-scm.org/D2933

[This file is here for historical purposes, all recent contributors
should appear in the changelog directly]

Andrea Arcangeli <andrea at suse.de>
Thomas Arendsen Hein <thomas at intevation.de>
Goffredo Baroncelli <kreijack at libero.it>
Muli Ben-Yehuda <mulix at mulix.org>
Mikael Berthe <mikael at lilotux.net>
Benoit Boissinot <bboissin at gmail.com>
Brendan Cully <brendan at kublai.com>
Vincent Danjean <vdanjean.ml at free.fr>
Jake Edge <jake at edge2.net>
Michael Fetterman <michael.fetterman at intel.com>
Edouard Gomez <ed.gomez at free.fr>
Eric Hopper <hopper at omnifarious.org>
Alecs King <alecsk at gmail.com>
Volker Kleinfeld <Volker.Kleinfeld at gmx.de>
Vadim Lebedev <vadim at mbdsys.com>
Christopher Li <hg at chrisli.org>
Chris Mason <mason at suse.com>
Colin McMillen <mcmillen at cs.cmu.edu>
Wojciech Milkowski <wmilkowski at interia.pl>
Chad Netzer <chad.netzer at gmail.com>
Bryan O'Sullivan <bos at serpentine.com>
Vicent Seguí Pascual <vseguip at gmail.com>
Sean Perry <shaleh at speakeasy.net>
Nguyen Anh Quynh <aquynh at gmail.com>
Ollivier Robert <roberto at keltia.freenix.fr>
Alexander Schremmer <alex at alexanderweb.de>
Arun Sharma <arun at sharma-home.net>
Josef "Jeff" Sipek <jeffpc at optonline.net>
Kevin Smith <yarcs at qualitycode.com>
TK Soh <teekaysoh at yahoo.com>
Radoslaw Szkodzinski <astralstorm at gorzow.mm.pl>
Samuel Tardieu <sam at rfc1149.net>
K Thananchayan <thananck at yahoo.com>
Andrew Thompson <andrewkt at aktzero.com>
Michael S. Tsirkin <mst at mellanox.co.il>
Rafael Villar Burke <pachi at mmn-arquitectos.com>
Tristan Wibberley <tristan at wibberley.org>
Mark Williamson <mark.williamson at cl.cam.ac.uk>