I went through all the messages on this issue, and I'll address them here.  There's enough material for two new issues (advanced FAQs, and improvements about Windows docs), and a few minor issues that can be discussed and fixed as part of this issues before closing it.


Chris in msg178927:

> I would break up the 20 lines of command-line commands.

Those are supposed to provide a complete overview, the individual commands are explained with inline comments, and more in details in the following section.  Is that OK?

> I would also state (or link to) something about forward-porting from
> 3.x to 3.y and that 2.7 should be kept separate

This should be covered now.

> I would also say (or link to) something about pushing all branches
> simultaneously.

This is not stated explicitly, but the fact that there's a single "hg push" at end implies it.  It might be mentioned somewhere together with "hg out".

> Lastly, might it be worth explicitly dividing the Mercurial stuff into separate sections for (1) everyone, and (2) committers?

This is done, explicitly in the FAQs, and more implicitly in committing.rst.  Committing.rst is written mainly for developers, whereas other parts of the devguide are more generic and valid for everyone.


Chris in msg178983:

> If applying to 2.7 or 3.2, etc. loses information (which has been 
> more often the case for me), then instead of merging I null-merge and 
> reapply the original patch.

This could be a FAQ.


Ezio in msg179853:

> At the end of committing.rst I can add a link to the "committers 
> faqs" in faqs.rst, and add more FAQs there.  Everything about null
> merges, head merges, merge conflicts, long-term development branches 
> etc. will go to faqs.rst.

This still needs to be done, and should be covered in a separate "Add 'advanced' mercurial FAQs for committers." issue.


Terry in msg182625:

> On Windows, ~/.hgrc is $HOME$/mercurial.ini.

This could either be mentioned right there, or if there are multiple occurrences of it, we could add a FAQs that briefly explains what .hgrc is and where to find it on Linux and Windows and link to it.

> with TortoiseHG/Workbench, one should better use the Settings dialogs 
> than edit directly.

This could also be mentioned in the aforementioned FAQ.


Terry in msg182633:

> Given the obnoxiousness of Command Prompt, and how foreign it is to working on > Windows, I think maybe there should be an addendum *somewhere*, 
> About  "run `make patchcheck`". The current Committing page gives
> "(or ./python.exe Tools/scripts/patchcheck.py on Windows)" as the windows
> equivalent. './' does not work on Windows. '.\' will, [...]

I suggest to create a new issue like "Improve Windows instructions in the devguide" and mention all these issues.