Re: [boost] [GitHub] [PR] setting default branch to 'develop'

Subject: Re: [boost] [GitHub] [PR] setting default branch to 'develop'
From: Louis Dionne (ldionne.2_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-10-29 15:00:22

Vladimir Prus <vladimir.prus <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> On 29-Oct-15 4:07 AM, Louis Dionne wrote:
> > Vladimir Prus <vladimir.prus <at> gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> Is this fine with everybody?
> >
> > No, it isn't. The only way of getting Hana right now is by cloning it from
> > GitHub. By making the default branch `develop`, you automatically make any
> > script that uses `git clone https://github.com/boostorg/hana` clone the
> > `develop` branch, and thus potentially clone something broken.
> ...
> > In general, I don't think defaulting pull-requests to master is a sufficient
> > argument for changing the default branch. There is a nice CONTRIBUTING
> > file at the root of the project telling people to pull-request against
> > develop, and I am always free to close pull-requests that do not follow
> > this advice. That being said, I don't care much about what is done for other
> > libraries, but I do care about Hana. Hence, please revert the default branch
> > to master for Hana.
> 
> I have set default branch for Hana back to master.

Thank you!

> That said, I believe that once Hana is included in Boost releases, the 
> decision about default branch should be made depending on what is right 
> for users of Boost. Which, I believe, is to have default branch be 'develop'. 

We disagree on that point, and it seems like the decision is not as obvious
as it seems. Clearly, changing the default branch has more consequences than
simply defaulting pull-requests against `develop`.

I, for one, have never been annoyed by the need to explicitly pull-request 
against `develop`. Hence, I don't think saving one click once or twice per 
month (how often do you submit PRs?) is worth adopting a surprising behaviour 
the rest of the time. I say surprising because people are used to `master` 
being the default branch on GitHub. We should also take into account the fact 
that the number of users cloning a repository or downloading the tarball from 
GitHub is probably much larger than the number of pull requests we submit.
How many WTFs from users is this going to generate?

To me, it just seems like we should stick with the standard behaviour. We can 
also request a new GitHub feature for setting the default pull-request branch, 
which, let's not forget, is the original motivation for this whole discussion.

> Somebody who contributes to Boost is a whole should not be forced to read 
> files in individual repositories to figure out which branch to send pull 
> requests too.

Sure. Hana also requires pull requests to be made against develop, so 
there's no need to read the CONTRIBUTING document.

Regards,
Louis