[Rt-devel] Relabeling subversion branches

[Blair Zajac]

Max Bowsher wrote:

> Jesse Vincent wrote:

>>Should the various stable/testing/experimental branches have their major
>>version numbers as part of their pathnames?  Is this new plan actually
>>better than what we do now? Is there a better model we should be
>>following that will be more useful to the general public?

These are for developers, so I think sticking with a standard scheme would work 
best.

> I favour identifying branches by version number, and putting the information about which version is which phase of development on a
> webpage.

Agreed.

> My reason for this is so that you can easily identify which branch is which version and vice versa.
> If you name the branches after phases of development, then the rt3.3/3.4 branch will be known as 'experimental', 'testing', and
> 'stable' at various points in it's lifecycle. Likewise, the 'stable'/'testing'/'whatever' branch doesn't tell you what version you
> are talking about, unless coupled with a point in time.

There's also the issues of changing the tree's when you move projects from 
testing to stable.  There's also the question of having multiple stable 
branches.  Say in a year, 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 are all stable, then what?

> I believe that the occasional user of RT is more likely to go for a tarball than a checkout, and in any case, would be better served
> by a webpage, giving more detail about the status of various branches than is possible in a one-word description.
> 
> Therefore, I suggest the following layout:
> 
> rt/branches/rt-3.0
> rt/branches/rt-3.2
> rt/branches/rt-3.3

Or

rt/branches/3.0
rt/branches/3.2
rt/branches/3.3

Since the rt is redundant.

> - and either:
> rt/trunk
> - or:
> rt/branches/rt-3.5

Agreed on this.

Regarding the floating or aliases of branches, you can do this with 
svn:externals.  You'd have an external stable directory that checks out the 
rt/branches/rt-3.2.

The problem is that you can't check them out directly and you've have to 
checkout the containing directory, which would then either contain all of your 
aliases, or contain a single directory which would then waste a directory level 
in your working copy.

I'd suggest just sticking with the Subversion standard method of dealing with 
versions.

Best,
Blair

-- 
Blair Zajac <blair at orcaware.com>
Plots of your system's performance - http://www.orcaware.com/orca/