[darcs-users] questions on patch theory

[Mirian Crzig Lennox]

Greetings,

I am a relatively new DARCS user; I was drawn to it by what I see as a
quite elegant theory of patches.  My background is in maths and
computer science rather than quantum mechanics, so I'm attempting to
understand the theory in terms of concepts familiar to me.  I'm hoping
that the list won't mind looking over my shoulder and perhaps tossing
me some clues as I tackle this.

First of all I'm trying to figure out a way to formalise the context
of a patch, and the relationship of a patch to a tree.

The introduction to the Theory of Patches defines the context of a
patch both as a tree, and as "the set of patches that precede it".  It
also defines a tree as "the result of a series of patches applied to
the empty tree".