[python-committers] branches and merging

[Jesse Noller]

On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote:
> Dirkjan Ochtman wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> The PSF would look to the developer community for advice on this issue,
> but if it's holding the DVCS switch up I can't think of many objections
> to spending a modest sum to remove the issue.

+100

jesse