Re: Updating svn head, trunk and branch.

[Anna Jonna Armannsdottir <annaj hi is>]

On lau, 2008-03-01 at 11:42 +0100, Christian Rose wrote:
> On 3/1/08, Anna Jonna Armannsdottir <annaj hi is> wrote:
> > I do not quite understand the advice given in
> >  Other hints in the LocalisationGuide. It says:
> >  http://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/LocalisationGuide#head-a3983f3a5960c2e1d2ef4dae83e9c8a200067216
> >  > Don't leave it ages to get stuff on the branch. We fell for this.
> >  > However long it takes to check out the branch and update your
> >  > translation, and however painful it is, if you intend to do both HEAD
> >  > and branch, apply the changes to both. If you don't, you will meet a
> >  > day when you spend hours and hours and hours doing nothing but feeding
> >  > stuff back onto the branch.
> >
> >  I presume that a translator can only concentrate on one .po file, at
> >  a time. If that is correct, then the translator must choose between
> >  branches and trunk/head.
> >  Is it a better choice to always stick tho the trunk, and then update
> >  the branches later.
> >  Or is it better to update one branch or several branches, and then
> >  updating the trunk/head?
> 
> If you're just starting your translation work, my advise would be to
> concentrate on trunk/head, and only update branches with your work
> from trunk/head if you have the time for it.
> 
> What's in trunk/head will live on, whereas branches are by definition
> a dead end, so precious time/resources is better spent on trunk/head.
> 
> Later, when you aim for completeness, the branches of course also have
> to be updated, especially as almost all current GNOME releases are
> made off gnome-2.xx branches. But that may not be what you want to
> concentrate on right now. If you want completeness in a future GNOME
> release, what you do in head/trunk right now is what matters.

Yes that is what i expected. 
Now I understand the advice above, as an encouragement to update the 
closest branch as soon as possible, after the trunk has been updated, 
because usually the trunk and the closest branch are most similar, 
when the branch has just sprouted from the trunk. If you let a lot of 
time pass without updating the branch, there will come a day when you
spend hours and hours and hours doing nothing but feeding stuff back
onto the branch. 

Once I was translating a branch of Evolution an then feeding that to 
the trunk. The trunk was a few releases ahead of the branch I was 
traslating and I found myself in a rather difficult situation trying 
to synchronize the trunk and an old branch. Can't recommend that 
to anyone, but it gave me a precious experience of how not to do
things. 

-- 
Kær kveðja, Anna Jonna Ármannsdóttir,   %&   A: Because people read from top to bottom.
Unix Kerfisstjórn, Reiknistofnun HÍ   %&   Q: Why is top posting bad?