Re: fast-forward only policy

[Felipe Contreras <felipe contreras gmail com>]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:55 PM, Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 11:52:54PM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:17 PM, Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org> wrote:
>> > On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 11:10:42PM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> >> > IMO you should make a good argument to switch, not the other way around.
>> >>
>> >> What I'm proposing makes things simpler. Do I need to make a good
>> >> argument of why simple things are good?
>> >
>> > You gave as reason 'you just switched your SCM and it's the best time to
>> > do that'. That is what I was referring to. Now you give another argument
>> > to the same question.
>>
>> There are many reasons, I thought it was obvious that 'stable' is
>> simpler than '1-2'.
>
> Not to me when there are multiple stable branches. It then just is
> latest-stable.

To me one would be 'stable' the other one would be 'maint'. If you are
going to argue that there could be 3 stable branches at the same time
then I would say: 'stable' (1-4), '1-2' and '1-0' make sense, but as
soon as the branch stops being active it should be deleted.

>> >> To be clear on what I'm proposing: there's no need to add 'project' to
>> >> branch names when you already know the project ('1-2' is fine). But
>> >> going into the next level, there's no need to have '1-2', '1-4' and
>> >> '1-0', 'stable' and 'master' are more than enough.
>> >
>> > Very strong -1 to 'stable'.
>> >
>> > Can we rename branches? What breaks? Gentoo?
>>
>> Gentoo is using your tarball releases. Or what do you mean?
>
> They complain when stuff isn't branched/tagged properly. Forgot which.

Well, ask them. I think they would be perfectly fine with a 'stable'
branch. That way they don't need to update their ebuild each time
there's a new major GNOME release.

> You didn't address the rest of my question.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean:
Can we rename branches? <- Yes
What breaks? <- Huh?
Gentoo? <- Huh?

>> >> Imagine someone who has been on a GNOME hiatus or is a new comer. What
>> >> would be easier to understand? '1-2' or 'stable'?
>> >
>> > 'stable' was already discussed. Within GNOME 2.20, 2.22, 2.24, 2.26 etc
>> > are stable. So it isn't clear.
>>
>> The latest one, of course.
>>
>> You don't need branches for targets that are not going to move.
>> Branches are for moving targets, tags are for fixed ones.
>
> That is just confusing. Really, I don't see why you don't see this.

That's just how git works: branches and tags are mere pointers.
There's no difference in the object storage, the only difference is
logical, you use branches in a way, tags in another way.

You can do stuff like:
git update-ref refs/heads/foobar 68b2aee # creates foobar branch
git update-ref refs/tags/foobar 68b2aee # creates foobar tag
git update-ref refs/taggybranch/foobar 68b2aee # creates foobar weird ref

-- 
Felipe Contreras