[python-committers] branches and merging

[Dirkjan Ochtman]

On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 17:52, Michael Foord <mfoord at python.org> wrote:
> What is the risk of going ahead with a broken system?
>
> The crux of the matter is that building Python for Windows could break if
> someone accidentally commits the wrong line-endings for a few specific files
> (Visual Studio project and configuration files - do I understand
> correctly?). If this happens, how hard a job would it be to find and fix the
> problem?

That wouldn't happen, because we'd have pre-push hooks in place that
prevent changesets changing something for the worse from going into
the central repository. That places a certain burden on people who run
into these issues to fix up their changesets, though. The argument
was, I think, that it's not reasonable for Windows developers to have
to spend time on fixing up their own changesets when other developers
don't have to do so.

> The risk *seems* reasonably low, people on non-Windows platforms are
> unlikely to touch those files and they are unlikely to be edited by hand,
> and if the cost of fixing the problem is low it seems reasonable to migrate
> earlier rather than later.

IMO the risk is negligible, due to the aformentioned precautions.

> Would it help for the PSF to pay someone to do the necessary testing +
> coding to ensure the problem is fixed and is there a likely person we could
> contract?

Matt Mackall, the founder of Mercurial, might be available. Martin
Geisler is the person who did most of the work on the eol extension so
far, including getting a Windows laptop from his university to try
some things, but I'm not sure he's available either. I could ask
around, though, if the PSF thinks spending money on this is
worthwhile.

Cheers,

Dirkjan