Re: Rewriting bzrmerge.el

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: David Engster <deng@randomsample.de>
> Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca,  esr@thyrsus.com,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 18:17:16 +0100
> 
> >> The 'trunk' checkout should also have a local tracking branch
> >> 'emacs-24'.
> >
> > I don't think it's a good idea to rely on that, because it's something
> > that's too easy to forget.
> 
> That's a misunderstanding. The above was not meant as a requirement, but
> as a consequence of using git-new-workdir.

I don't think we should rely on git-new-workdir, either.  First, it
doesn't work well on Windows, so the few frequent contributors
(including yours truly) who work on that system will be unable to use
it.  And second, it's a contrib/ script, i.e. not really official yet,
and has a few caveats (see past discussions).

I'm going to recommend on the Wiki that people who don't consider
themselves advanced/experienced Git users clone the repository twice,
in which case they most probably won't have a checkout of emacs-24 in
the clone where they work on master, and vice versa.

> If you follow admin/notes/git-workflow and create a separate
> checkout of the emacs-24 branch, you will automatically have a local
> tracking branch emacs-24 (also in 'trunk').

Following admin/notes/git-workflow is not a requirement, it's an
advice.  IMO, gitmerge.el should work even without that, at least
ideally.

> That's why gitmerge.el doesn't have to detect anything. It simply can
> do its work in 'trunk'.

AFAIU, not if there's no checkout of emacs-24 there.

> >> Alternatively, we could default to merge origin/emacs-24, which
> >> wouldn't even require a local tracking branch.
> >
> > Yes, please, let's do that.
> 
> You'll be able to do either. For git it makes no difference whether you
> merge a local or a remote branch.

I didn't mean me, I meant gitmerge.el.  If it always uses
origin/emacs-24, it will work regardless of whether there is a
checkout of emacs-24.  So I think this is more reliable.