Re: [boost] [Git] Documentation for Git and Modular Boost conversion

Subject: Re: [boost] [Git] Documentation for Git and Modular Boost conversion
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-12-10 12:12:12

On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 8:43 PM, Julian Gonggrijp <j.gonggrijp_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Browsing through the wiki pages linked from that section, a few things
> caught my attention.
>
>
> wiki/ModCvtSvn2Git [1] states
>
>> Each individual Boost library's public repository will contain a
>> single branch, "master", that corresponds to branches/release in
>> Subversion.
>
> As I seemed to recall that the modularized Boost would adopt GitFlow,

Yes, that's the plan.

> I was surprised by the suggestion that a library's public repository
> would not be allowed (or at least not required) to have a "develop"
> branch corresponding to the Subversion "trunk".

Hum... That's too narrow an interpretation. I've added wording to
distinguish between initial state at conversion and then the ongoing
workwflow

> Indeed when I opened
> wiki/StartModWorkflow [2] it turned out that the wiki pages don't
> internally agree on this issue yet:
>
>> An unusually simple, single developer library would have only the
>> permanent *develop* and *master* branches that are required for all
>> Boost libraries.
>
>
> Furthermore the bullet list at the top of [1] seems to suggest that
> the new Git repositories will not keep track of any history; only the
> list item dedicated to the old Svn repo mentions "full history". I
> believe this to be partly due to an inaccuracy, because the individual
> library repos will contain /branches/ which supposedly will hold all
> commits made to those brances. This is also further explained in [2].
>
> Another reason might be (IIUC) that after the initial conversion, the
> individual library repos will start with only a clean copy of the
> latest state on the Svn repo. Nonetheless I believe the current
> wording on the wiki page can be needlessly alarming to the less
> gitflow-enlightened reader, because it may seem to suggest that it
> still won't record history /after/ the initial conversion.

Wording clarified.

> While wiki/ModCvtSchedule [3] may be alpha, the schedule seems
> ambitious enough that I think it would be wise to get all library
> maintainers ready for take-off as soon as possible. Even if you don't
> really plan to have library maintainers start beta testing the Git
> repos next week as the schedule suggests, I think about *now* is the
> time to make a global announcement on this mailing list that
> developers will need to install Git and familiarise themselves with it
> sometime soon. I believe an exact date is not needed to license such
> an announcement.

Yes, but the feeling was that documentation had to be provided before
making such an announcement. That's why the docs are being developed
this week.

> For wiki/Git/GitHome [4] I would like to suggest two additions:
>  - Add git-flow [5] to the "Installing Git" list.
>  - Add GitImmersion [6] to the "Learning to use Git" list.

That's the second recommendation I've seen for Gitimmersion, so I've
added it even though I haven't a chance to review it myself.

I also added a reference to the workflow page for those interested in git-flow.

> Hope this helps!

Yes, for sure!

Thanks,

--Beman