Re: Please don't use revision numbers on commit messages (and elsewhere).

[Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 03:20, Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> wrote:

> Anyone can setup a public repo anytime, anywhere. Let's think of a
> long-lived feature branch of the type of lexbind or bidi which, for
> whatever reason, the participating developers finds more convenient to
> host outside of Savannah.

I think Eli has already answered that: if/when it happens, we can
discuss how to minimize the problems. Until now, it is entirely
hypothetical.

> In the case of patches, using revision ids on the commit messages is,
> actually, most convenient, because on that case the referenced ids are
> unambiguous no matter on which branch the patch is applied.

"Unambiguous" does not mean "I have it accessible and I know which
branch it refers to". Are you defending using revids because they are
unique, or because you don't like to having around multiple branches?

> On a distributed project, you don't know how many active branches exist
> out there.

Last time I checked, Emacs wasn't a "distributed project". It is a
centralized project with a distributed tool that helps developers.

> Let me expand with an example based on my past* experience. I have a
> number of heterogeneous machines (different OS, varying network
> connectivity, etc) and on all of them I have Emacs running (of
> course!). I've my private branch with some customizations, which is what
> I use for building and installing Emacs on all those machines. Keeping
> the private branch mirrored among all of them means work. Keeping
> mirrors for `trunk', emacs-23 and what-not is too much of a burden (last
> time I checked there was no simple & reliable method for synchronizing
> sets of branches across multiple platforms.)

Sorry, you lost me here. "trunk, emacs-23 and what-not" can be mostly
summarized to "trunk, emacs-23 and nothing else", *unless* you're
actively tracking window-pub, lexbind-new or some other branch, which
most people (even developers) apparently don't do. If we maintained
dozens of branches, all of them vibrant with activity, I could buy it.
But we use a development branch and a release branch, and a few
almost-private-development-branches-that-nobody-tracks, and that
doesn't seem likely to change in the near future.

> Do you prefer to wait until the problem has manifested itself on all its
> crudeness? :-)

Sure I do. And you know why? Because Bazaar revnos are *convenient*,
and Bazaar revids are a royal PITA. I don't want to abandon convenient
shorthands for what, at the moment, is just FUD.

    Juanma