Re: [boost] [git] neglected aspects

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] neglected aspects
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-02-28 15:03:12

on Wed Feb 08 2012, Daniel James <dnljms-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8 February 2012 14:37, Julian Gonggrijp <j.gonggrijp_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>
>> This might have been mentioned before, but gitflow seems to be ideal.
>> See [5] for an explanation of the branching model and [6] for an
>> optional tool which automates workflows that adopt the model.
>
> The problem that we face with something like gitflow is testing. We
> only have the infrastructure for testing two branches so we can't
> adequately test feature branches. We really do need to test on a wide
> variety of platforms as early as possible. 

The way we plan to handle this with Ryppl is that you check in a testing
specification with your project.  The testing specification is just a
text file, something like this JSON:

  {
    <configname>: {
      dependencies: { /* dependency versions */
        <libname>: <git tree-ish>, ...
      },
      cmake: { /* properties passed to cmake */
        <key>: <value>, ...
      },
      platforms: [ <platform-string>, ... ]
    }, ...
  }

Where you can request multiple configurations to be tested for commits
on each branch.  To get your in-development work tested, just publish a
feature branch containing a test specification file to your public
repository.

The test results are then added to the commit using git notes.

> But we wouldn't want to merge half done features into the develop
> branch just to get testing (this is one of the biggest problems we
> have at the moment, changes are often in trunk for some time before
> they're merged into release, if at all).
>
> A possible solution would be to use the 'develop' branch as the
> equivalent of our current release branch

I take for granted that we're going to have a modularized boost with a
separate repository for each library (<https://github.com/boost-lib>)
and each library will have its own develop branch.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com