Re: Removing old branches

From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-11-15 12:57:49

On 2019-11-15 15:49, Edward Diener via Boost wrote:
> On 11/15/2019 7:32 AM, Alexander Grund via Boost wrote:
>> Am 15.11.19 um 11:56 schrieb Edward Diener via Boost:
>>> I received an issue about Boost PP having lots of old branches which 
>>> the issuer would like removed. I notice most other Boost libraries 
>>> also have lots of old branches. Is there any policy about removing 
>>> these old branches from a Boost library repository ? Many of these 
>>> old branches are svn-branches, but most of them do not have any value 
>>> any more and, of course, do not affect the current 'develop' or 
>>> 'master' branch.
>>
>> It was me requesting this. See e.g. 
>> https://github.com/boostorg/preprocessor/branches/stale for about 70 
>> stale branches. According to GitHub all(or at least most) of them are 
>> merged into master/develop as indicated by e.g. "1 commit ahead, 275 
>> commits behind develop" where the "1 commit" is "This commit was 
>> manufactured by cvs2svn to create branch 'SPIRIT_1_6'."
>>
>> I don't see any value in those branches, as they look like feature 
>> branches from SVN times that are already merged and hence obsolete. 
>> Every Fork will have them too which makes switching to new feature 
>> branches when developing cumbersome.
>>
>> IMO one can delete all branches saying "1 commit ahead, *" where the 
>> latest commit is from "nobody" without further checking. The remaining 
>> ones might need a check if they actually contain new stuff.
> 
> I was just pointing out that Boost PP is hardly the only Boost library 
> which has lots of stale branches. If it is not against Boost policy to 
> delete old, stale branches I will be glad to do so, but I was just 
> looking for some clarification from other Boost developers first.

I believe, beyond master and develop, your usage of branches is 
completely at your (project members') discretion. There's no Boost-wide 
policy.