Re: bzr repository ready?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Óscar_Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es>
> Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:45:11 +0100
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> >> For large compiled projects such as Emacs, the use of feature branches
> >> is not that great. First, building takes a long time.
> >
> > Why does the building take a long time in that case?
> >
> >> Second, it imposes a large penalty on those who just want to hack
> >> some elisp.
> >
> > What penalty is that?
> 
> Let's suppose that you want to do some lightweight hacking on a elisp
> component of emacs. The `feature branch' workflow says that you create a
> new local branch specifically for that:
> 
> bzr branch path/to/my/local/emacs/mirror fix-bug-3429
> 
> and then you edit the .el files. But at some point you want to test
> them, and for that you need an emacs executable. Now, building emacs is
> not a fast operation even on a GNU/Linux modern desktop (let's not
> mention Windows). Hence, even when you start the build right after the
> feature branch creation, it is possible that you end your modifications
> before the build ends. This certainly will occur often on slow GNU/Linux
> machines and even on fast Windows machines.

I'm not quite sure I understand.  Are you talking about bootstrap?
That one indeed can take 30 minutes on Windows.  But that's a one-time
thing; subsequent builds, when just a handful of files are modified
are much faster.  It's a rare feature or even a bugfix that needs only
one build.  And its already clear that making a full-fledged branch
for a simple bugfix is not the best idea.

> I guess that this is yet another case of "having lots of options is
> counter-producing for the uninformed".

Not if the information is presented in a clear way that is relevant
for the context in which it is required (in this case, Emacs
development).

Actually, I think I've understood enough to know what to do first when
we switch to bzr.  About the only thing that's still not clear enough
is whether to keep my bidi branch locally or on subversions.  Any
thoughts?

> But my English is awful.

There's nothing wrong, let alone awful, with your English.  Thanks
a lot for taking time to explain all this.