Re: elpa.git and `new-master`

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

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On Thu, 17 Dec 2020 at 19:18, Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm>
wrote:

>
> On Thu, Dec 17 2020, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
> >> Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:46:49 -0500
> >> Cc: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>, Boruch Baum <
> boruch_baum@gmx.com>,
> >>  Emacs-Devel List <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> >>
> >> OK, I renamed `new-master` to `main`.
> >> Will have to ask for a sysadmin to do the server-side dance, now.
> >>
> >> But before I do that: if we want to do this for `elpa.git`, why not do
> it
> >> for `nongnu.git`, and for `emacs.git` as well?
> >
> > Not for emacs.git, please.  Let's leave that at 'master'.
>
> If you keep 'master' in one repo, it should probably be kept
> in all Emacs-related repos. It's less confusing that way.
>
> I agree. Things are far less confusing if they are consistent.

I also feel that people have focused on how easy it is to make this change
technically, but have ignored the change management repercussions. In
addition to communicating the change, it is also important to consider what
documentation, howtos, tutorials etc that will need to be updated. Thie
importance is increased by the fact that regardless of personal position,
calling the trunk or initial repository master is the common and expected
practice for many users. It is also the default for many tools.

This is not a vote for or against, simply highlighting the point it is the
technical ease of making the change is not the same as the impact of the
change. As many on this list tend to have a strong technology bias, it is
easy to overlook the impact of such changes and how they impact on uses who
have less of a technical focus. We can expect to see an increase in
messages from people who are confused becauwse the information they found
on forums like stack overflow etc no longer works.
-- 
regards,

Tim

--
Tim Cross

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