Re: [boost] [git] How the blazes are you supposed to update all the submodules?

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] How the blazes are you supposed to update all the submodules?
From: Daniel James (daniel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-12-19 08:27:35

On 19 December 2013 13:00, John Maddock <john_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> BTW I have every library set explicitly to either "develop" or "master".

IMO for libraries that you're not working on the best thing is to use
whatever the superproject uses and not bother with branches. We might
set the submodules to a different commit for some reason, so you could
end up developing against the wrong version of a module.

> If I do a "git pull" on an individual library then the changes do come
> through OK.
>
> So what's the right way to do this?  I assume it's not a "submodule update"
> as that seems to leave everything in a detached head state which I take it
> is a bad idea?

I know some people are using something like 'git submodule foreach git
pull' to pull every repo. I'm not very keen on that, so my current
thinking is to configure modules I'm working on as 'dirty' so that
submodule will ignore them. I haven't had any time to try that yet as
I'm doing infrastructure things at the moment.

> I'm also seeing a lot of negative comments about Git submodules on the web,
> for example:
> http://codingkilledthecat.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/why-your-company-shouldnt-use-git-submodules/,
> seems like there's a lot of potential to shoot yourself in the
> foot/head/chest here?

I believe the plan was to eventually transition to a package manage
system. Although I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.