I've read a lot about Mercurial and branching in it, however, I am still very much a version control newbie.
I'm currently working on a project, where I have been tasked to work on a new module.
I have a "main" repository, which contains the latest code from the rest of the project, and a cloned repository (call it "task") where I am doing my work now.
I am a bunch of commits into my task, and find that I would like to do a little "experiment" with the way my program reads/stores/handles configuration data.
Now, if I understand VC best-practices correctly, this would be a great time to branch.
If I start into this experiment, and I like where it's going, I will want to merge it back into my "task" repository on the "default" branch pretty quickly.
On the other hand, if I don't like how it's going, I'll probably just scrap the branch.
The way I am most comfortable branching is through cloning, however I don't think this would be the best approach in this situation, as I'll only be changing a few files, but apparently using named branches is permanent, which doesn't seem appropriate here either.
What is your advice / best practice for this kind of situation?