Re: git migration - svn:externals

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Thu, 2009-04-23 at 08:06 +0200, Johannes Schmid wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> svn:externals are not migrated at all. That breaks anjuta-extras module
> (b.g.o #579867) and gtkmm (fixed by duplicating files now).
> 
> Is there anything we can do to fix it? Duplicating files is a quite weak
> and ugly solution.

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-infrastructure/2009-March/msg00054.html

is some analysis I did earlier. It has a suggestion for gtkmm, which
might or might not be better than duplication.

The entire anjuta-extras module was created a few weeks ago, so
obviously the svn:extras usage there didn't show up in my search. Taking
a quick look, my opinion is that Anjuta should just install those files
somewhere.

I tend to agree with Zeeshan and John that the entire concept of
symlinking parts of one version control tree into another version
control tree is problematical. In particular:

 - Its confusing. Depending on the VCS, people will either tend to 
   accidentally commit stuff into the symlinked tree and break other
   modules, or miss a committing changes altogether.

 - It breaks tagging, unless the external reference is to a particular
   version, in which case it needs manual updates.

   (CVS module references to gnome-common created the tag/branch mess
   which delayed getting that migrated for almost a week.)

And we have powerful tools for intermodule dependencies with jhbuild and
pkg-config, and Linux package managers.

So, while using git submodules is conceivable, I think it should be an
option of last resort. It would also require jhbuild support.

- Owen