Question about Source Control

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
> With multiple branches (as with 2.7, 3.4, and default for cpython) and
> multiple active developers (20?) commiting to those brances, commits are
> definitely not free. I would not exactly call them as cheap as you seem to
> imply either. That said, I have occasionally pushed interim changes that put
> code in an improved and stable state.
>
> N. Coughlan has suggested improving the cpython infrastructure and
> procedures to reduce the cost of commits to encourage more people to make
> more commits (in the sense of more lines changed, not more pieces) and
> improve cpython faster.

When I call them cheap, what I mean is that there's little difference
between a single commit and 2-3 commits as a group. Yes, there's a bit
more difference when you're cherry-picking them to other branches, and
maybe an infrastructure/procedure change could help with that; but
once they're there in history, it doesn't hurt to have three separate
commits doing related work, keeping the distinct parts distinct.

ChrisA