Re: [boost] Boost Development Environment proposal

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-06-04 13:17:47

Gennadiy Rozental wrote:
> "Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
> news:010801c7a6c9$b39badb0$6407a80a_at_pdimov2...

>> I'd still like to have a 'trunk' from which I can 'svn update'.
>
> 1. Why can't you do it from root?
> 2. With independent development and svn externals you don't need to
> do it as frequently. you do update in your local directory and it
> updates all you depend on.

I'm focused on getting ~85% of the benefits with ~30% of the effort and a 
clear migration path.

My current development model is sync against CVS HEAD, do work, commit, 
check test results, fix. My use model is sync against CVS HEAD, compile 
project, yell at whoever introduced a regression in the boost component I'm 
using. This works well for me and I'd like to keep working in a similar way.

The structure and organization I have in mind is doable incrementally. There 
is one relatively painful step of reorganizing the boost directory 
structure, but it's process-independent. After that, developers can continue 
working against the trunk as they do now. Once the test matrix for a library 
is green, the developer can create a version tag. This can be done 
automatically as you suggest, but it can also be done manually as SVN makes 
it relatively easy.

The dependency management can also be introduced at a later date. It is not 
as fine grained as in your proposal - you can't depend on a specific 
version - and this is intentional, to keep things simple. This step requires 
the test infrastructure to be updated to allow testing a specific library 
and only pull a subtree.

A release also doesn't require any new tools; it can be done manually by the 
release manager. We may be able to streamline it with tools in the future, 
of course.