Re: Release branch plans

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> > Yes, you do, at least what _I_ am talking about.  I explained this at
>> > least twice in the past: the history is all messed up on the trunk as
>> > result of this.
>> No, it's not messed up.  Maybe you don't like it (not sure why), and
>> maybe `bzr log' shows it in a weird or messed up way (in which case you
>> should take it up with the bzr guys), but the history itself is very
>> much not messed up at all.
> If it shows to humans as messed up, then for all practical purposes it
> _is_ messed up.

No: history is something that gets recorded "for eternity", whereas its
rendition in human form is done on the fly and can be fixed by
subsequent releases (or by the use of other tools, options, ...).
Hence history is of utmost importance, whereas its rendition is secondary.

>> > Maybe we should take a step back and ask ourselves why do we need to
>> > merge from the stable branch to the trunk at all?
>> Very simple: we want to make sure all the bug-fixes we install on the
>> stable branch don't get lost on the next release, and we want to reflect
>> this info into the VCS history so the VCS knows what's going on.
> What do you mean by "don't get lost"?  Installing them on the trunk
> separately, or through cherry-picking, will get them to trunk all the
> same, no?

But that depends on not forgetting to install it on both sides, which is
error prone and is more work than installing only once on the release
branch and merging later since merging can be batched and largely automated.


        Stefan