[IPython-dev] IPython development news and prospects

[Jörgen Stenarson]

Fernando Perez skrev:
> - The first is source control.  All this work will likely require a
> fair amount of messing around with multiple parts of the codebase, by
> multiple people.  Hence I'm thinking this is the time to switch out to
> a DVCS.  I know we've talked about it, and it's something that seems
> to be "in the air".  By this I mean that right now, the same
> discussion is going on in the Emacs-dev, python-dev, matplotlib-dev
> and numpy/scipy-dev lists.  I honestly don't want to get dragged into
> a git/hg/bzr debate here, *all* of the above lists have to some extent
> done that already.
> 
> My proposal is very simple: we go with hg.  Other related projects to
> us are already using it (Sage & sympy), I know some of you already use
> it yourselves, some of the MPL devs personally use it, I've used it
> and liked it, and Robert Kern already uses it.  To me, that's enough
> to let me make a choice.  It really seems like *both* bzr and hg are
> pretty good, even if they have small differences here and there.  I
> think we'll benefit a lot more from having *A* dvcs than from having
> yet another 70-email-long thread on the subject.
> 
> So the question is: does anyone here *fundamentally object* to
> switching out to hg for the project?
Personally I really like the nice integration of tortoise-svn into 
windows. That is something I'd hate to lose. That said I can see that 
the benefits of using a DVCS compensate the pain I will feel with a much 
smoother workflow for the project as a whole. I think it is a good idea 
to just go with what the others use, hopefully the other projects will 
follow our lead. So I say go for it.

...
> The only downside tconfig has is a dependence on Enthought Traits,
> which has C code.  The upsides are vast, including a *clean* way of
> handling many of the configuration-related problems that pop up here
> all the time.  We can have a separate discussion thread for this topic
> later if you want, because I think it's the only potentially
> contentious one and we don't want to ram it down anyone's throat.
> 
I think having C code in the project will be a major drawback in getting 
new developers on windows. Getting a compiler working can be a lot of 
work. But the positive aspects of using something trait-like seems it 
could definitely be worth it.

/Jörgen