Present: Joanne Bogart, Toby Burnett, James Chiang, Johann Cohen-Tanugi, David Chamont, Seth Digel, Richard Dubois, Dan Flath, Warren Focke, Navid Golpayegani, Heather Kelly, Michael Kuss, Matt Langston, Julie McEnery, Pat Nolan, Chuck Patterson, James Peachey, Dirk Petry, Leon Rochester, Alex Schlessinger, Tracy Usher
Toby would like to see automatic creation of branch tags at each release. This would allow for ongoing patches to releases without impacting large-scale development, as in this case. It has the additional benefit of making it possible to see at a glance which package tags correspond to releases as in the CVS log above. (Tracy suggests that the graphical version provided by our new CVS browser makes it even clearer. Could we configure ViewCVS so that newest tags are at the top by default in such graphs? [Update: Yes, we could, at least Pat could, as of this afternoon.]) Currently one can readily look up a release and see the list of package tags, but there is no easy way to see the correspondence in the other direction, from package tag to release. Toby has a related request that one of our scripting gurus make such branch tags for past releases.
He would also like to see some automatically-generated indication in the CVS log when a tag is made and by whom. Currently such information is available only if the tagger uses recommended procedures to update release.notes.
(Tracy) The Tracker changes most likely to affect other developers will be completed quickly, so the requirement for parallel development in this case is not quite so pressing. (Toby) The main thing, in this case and others, is that other developers be aware which packages are unstable; i.e., HEAD not usable by them for development or patches. In the current case, if the critical part can be done quickly, the best strategy may just be to get it over with.
(Leon) We need naming conventions for the branch tags which will work with our tools. MRvcmt will check out such tags, but in some cases they are invisible in the package list. (Heather) glastpack handles branch tags with no problem [Update: Riccardo was alerted and has already checked in fixes for both Linux and Windows.] . (Heather) Naming conventions should be designed such that RM can ignore branch tags when appropriate.
(Leon) Some operations, such as committing to the HEAD of a branch, are awkward and hence error-prone; we need more support for branches from tools, including the ability to make releases on a branch. (Heather) Yes, she typically makes EngineeringModel patch releases off of the EngineeringModel branch. (Richard) In the meantime, awkward manual operations should be well-documented, something for Heather and Chuck to look into.
(James) He doesn't think all the machinery for automatic branch tagging - and the time required to debug it - is warranted for Science Tools. There are fewer developers and less complex dependencies among packages. (Richard) Nonetheless, once we move to a more controlled environment a more formal scheme for maintenance of releases (which doesn't interfere with development) will be necessary.
∫ Flight(w, ..) dw
AOB
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J. Bogart Last Modified: 01-Jun-2010 15:45:49 -0700