[rt-devel] Reason for code overlays

[Florian Weimer]

Todd Chapman wrote:

> Code overlays are to minimize the diffing you have to do with
> each upgrade. It allows you to only worry about changes in
> the areas that you customized. It's easier than maintaining
> your own branch and doing merges with every new release.

I don't think so.  Diffing my overlay file to the original file in a new
upstream release is more difficult than comparing in-place modifications
(and can hardly be automated).  AFAICT, you have to do some merging
anyway, and it's easier if you can use the usual tools.

It helps somewhat for completely new subroutines, but I don't see the
point for tweaks to existing ones.