Re: [boost] [git] neglected aspects

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] neglected aspects
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-02-28 15:19:49

on Thu Feb 09 2012, Beren Minor <beren.minor+boost-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

+1

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