[asdf-install-devel] Patches, Darcs, 'n' stuff

[Dan Muller]

"Attila Lendvai attila.lendvai-at-gmail.com |asdf-install-devel/Both|" <tfjojs2yex0t at sneakemail.com> writes:

Attila Lendvai wrote:
>> Gary King wrote:
>> I think that It should be possible to include your patches in the
>> darcs repository without making them the tip. If we can figure out
>> the syntax so that folks who grab ASDF-Install will get the "plain"
>> version while folks who want it can get it the cutting edge version,
>> them I'm happy to host your changes (Attila, do you know the
>> mechanics for doing this?). I'm also happy to link to your repo. Just
>> let me know.
>
> the usual way people deal with it is to have a stable and an unstable
> branch. all the developers are working with the unstable branch and
> after test periods or someone doing their own exhaustive tests,
> several patches at once are pulled into the stable branch to
> constitute a stable state of the development. this may involve pulling
> patches from unstable out of order (i.e. bugfixes are pulled while
> some new features are not yet).
>
> playing with tags is not too good because it's hard to communicate up
> to which tag people should pull and getting the repo also gets the
> head.
>

Yes, that is my understanding too, after reading about Darcs this
weekend. Where "branch" means an entirely separate copy of the
repository. In fact, I think that for Linux kernel devleopment (using
Git, similar to Darcs), Linus has a separate, publically-visible
repository for every major contributor, from which he cherry-picks the
patches that he chooses.

-- Dan Muller