[Python-Dev] Hg: inter-branch workflow

[Nick Coghlan]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:51 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> Let's say I'm working on a fairly substantial feature that may take
> weeks to complete. My way of working is to explore different
> approaches until I'm happy. I like to make checkpoints while I'm
> exploring so that I can easily backtrack from experiments. I'm not
> pushing any of this to the central repo; I'm just using a local repo.
> Over a few weeks this can easily lead to 100+ commits. Occasionally I
> push patches to Rietveld for review. When my reviewer and me are happy
> we want to push my work to the core repo. But do you really want my
> 100 commits (many of which represent dead ends) in the core repo? Many
> of them probably have checkin messages that make no sense to anyone.
>
> I know I would be sorely tempted to use hg export + hg import (and
> extensive testing after the latter of course) so that the approved
> changes can land with a single thud in the core repo. But maybe I'm a
> dinosaur?

I don't think so. That line of reasoning is why one of the first
things I did after the transition was complete was to create a
personal sandbox repository on hg.python.org (using the server side
clone feature in the web interface). Any long term work will be done
on feature branches there (e.g. that's where the LHS precedence work
currently lives), with the "main" repository used only for applying
completed patches.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia