[GRASS5] GRASS branching

[John Huddleston]

Markus, (and Grass CVS users)

Sorry to take so long to reply, had the day off yesterday!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Markus Neteler <neteler at geog.uni-hannover.de>
To: <grass5 at geog.uni-hannover.de>
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 7:22 AM
Subject: [GRASS5] GRASS branching


> Hi all,
> 
> concerning GRASS branches I would like to
> 
>  - keep the main tree as experimental (HEAD = default trunk as now,
>    all modules have "exp" tag currently)
>  - create stable branch from this tree by branch tagging

No branch tag, just a normal tag will suffice.   The branch
tag is a spacial form of the tag that allows a merge at a later
time.  Since in this case, we do not want to change the past,
put a TAG on the main (much like you did with xgrass).

Again, a branch tag is necessary when two programmers 
are modifying the same code and one is changing the 
"external"  features of the code (changing the RETURN code
of 0 or 1, or the number or type of arguments, or changing the
name of the function, subroutine, method, or class.)   In this 
way the developer can continue to use versioning but it 
will not impact other developers until a merge is executed.

> 
> Advantage:
>  - no changes for the developers as the tags keep unchanged
>  - easier to maintain: if module is stable, "stable tag" will
>    be applied, else no changes (if unstable)
> 
> Results:
>  - trunk keeps as it is (no changes for you)
>  - stable version can be checked out by tag specification
> 

Yes.

> Disadvantage:
>  - might be unusual to have main trunk as experimental and
>    stable as branch ? (I don't know)
>

Usually the HEAD is the experimental section.  Users who want
a stable version can check out (or export) code with a tag.
 
> Questions:
>  - If applying a branch "stable" tag, does such a tagged module
>    disappear from the main (experimental) trunk?
>

No, all files that are tagged are still in the repository.  Only
the cvs remove puts files into the Attic directory and the
disappear from the HEAD branch.

John Huddleston


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