[Freeciv-Dev] Re: commit early, commit often (was: Submit patch again?)

[Kevin Brown <kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jason Dorje Short <jshort@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Raimar Falke wrote:
> 
> > Ok you want multiple CVS branches. What do other people think?
> 
> Multiple branches = good
> Multiple repositories = bad (IMO)
> 
> I think these terms have been confused sometimes during this
> discussion.

I agree.  I was referring to branches.  Keeping multiple repositories
would make the work A LOT harder, if only because you couldn't then
take advantage of CVS's ability to merge branches together.

> IMO, the main CVS branch doesn't need to be nearly as stable as it's
> being kept.  Before each release, rather than freeze all code make a CVS
> branch (i.e. tagged 1.12.1-beta) which then becomes "stable" and gets
> only bugfixes.  You can have lots of beta releases, daily snapshots, or
> just tell people to use this CVS tag.  Meanwhile progress can still be
> made on the head (unstable) branch.  Since there's no impediment to
> normal work the code freeze on this stable branch can go on as long as
> you want - there's no need to back out code; you can take the time to
> fix it properly.

I like this idea.  The only thing to keep in mind is that bugfixes
will need to be applied to both the "beta" branch and the head branch.
But yeah, this sounds remarkably like what I had in mind, probably
better, in fact, because rather than having to do a periodic merge you
just create branches as you need them.

Yeah.  I like this a lot.

> For patches that are especially unstable/code-changing, it may be
> desirable to make a separate branch to work on them.  This makes
> development on the patch itself *much* easier.  It would be really nice
> if CVS would allow you to give write access to a single branch so that
> lots of people could work on "unstable" branches.
> 
> Using CVS branches like this will take very little work on the part of
> the developers, and the benefit is large.

This is *exactly* what I've been trying to say.

> Unlike, say, the Linux kernel, Freeciv is not critical code.  

I'm sure you'll get *some* objections to this assertion, but not from
me.  :-)

> There is no need for separate repositories for stable and unstable
> code, and having such will make a lot more work, I think.

Yeah, it definitely will!


Okay, guys, scratch my idea of always maintaining two separate
branches.  That's too much like maintaining two separate repositories.
I like the idea of keeping a main "unstable" branch off of which you
periodically split "stable" branches a lot better.

I'll think about it a little more.  There may be some better way to do
it, but this is the best I've heard so far....



-- 
Kevin Brown                                           kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    It's really hard to define what "unexpected behavior" means when you're
                       talking about Windows.