Re: [boost] [git] neglected aspects

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] neglected aspects
From: Beren Minor (beren.minor+boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-02-09 06:26:33

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 12:07 PM, Tim Blechmann <tim_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> the semantics of git submodules is a bit weird: if you check out a new
> revision of the top-level repository, the submodules won't be updated
> automatically, but you need to run `git submodules update' manually ... i am
> using submodules for tracking some external dependencies and in my experience
> 70% of the compile failures of my users are related to submodules getting out
> of sync.
>
> for a project like boost, i'd therefore suggest to avoid submodules. the
> advantage however is that the full git repository of boost is few hundred mb
> ...

Submodules are probably misunderstood and misused most of the time. I
think it was not meant to be used to have separate repositories for
sub-part of the projects and a everything evolving together in sync. I
see the use of submodules more like integrators would do, retrieving
specific revisions of various sub projects, and testing these versions
alltogether. Whenever parts integrates well, the submodule versions
that work fine together are frozen in a commit.
This is not very usable if you try to develop directly in the "main"
repository that has the submodules.

For Boost, I would say it could be used and even a powerful tool for
integrating libraries together, testing them and managing release
lifecycle, but could hardly be used for day to day library
development.

-- 
Beren Minor