Re: org changes lost

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On Nov 25, 2008, at 3:50 AM, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> My skills in version control my not be sufficient to do this, jumping
>> between different version control worlds.
>
> You just need to reflect the branch of one into a branch of the other
> (one-way only), so it's not that difficult.  E.g. you can commit (via
> naive overwrite&commit) your externally-maintaned code into a special
> branch in the CVS, and then use cvs to merge the changes from that
> branch into the trunk.
>
> Or you can do it the other way around and take a copy of Emacs's trunk
> every once in a while, commit it onto a special branch in your main
> VCS (e.g. Bzr or Git), and then merge that branch into your main  
> branch.
>
> The safer thing to do (when working between VCS or without VCS) is to
> never copy files, but only ever take diffs and apply them.  It's not
> like taking diffs is safer but it forces you to think "diff between  
> what
> and what", so it makes it more likely that you'll do the right thing.

Yes, this sounds like the sane thing todo.  However, there are  
complications for this, such as the fact that the directory structure  
in my own repo is slightly different, and that I need to change the  
commit dates in the ChangeLog file when updating the files in Emacs,  
so at least for me tere is always some hand fiddling involved.

>
>
>> So I work by applying changed in Emacs to my local copy and reserve  
>> the
>> right to undo changes made in Emacs (not that this has been necessary
>> recently).  Usually this works OK, occasionally, like yesterday,
>> I miss something.
>
> To avoid this, try to do a "diff since last sync" and apply that to
> Emacs's repository.  This may result in conflicts, but only if there  
> are
> concurrent changes that you need to pay attention to.

Yes.  I do follow Emacs development through a git mirror, and since
yesterday I do have a local tag that is called last-sync-with-org-repo.
At lease as a double-checking mechanism this will be effective, I hope.

Thanks

- Carsten