How to cope with patches sanely

[Manoj Srivastava]

Hi,

        I think one of the differences that patch series mechanism has
 wrt to new development, either in a feature or upstream, is that it
 requires updates to the integration work doe every single upload. It
 also requires a strict ordering between each feature, making it harder
 to compile and test each feature independently.  It is nice that quilt
 helps keep the integration patch up to date; but this is extra work I
 am glad not to have to do.

        An integration branch does the integration once, and does not
 bother to explicitly keep the integration patch updated for every
 upload -- but it does keep each feature branch  up to date, and the
 integration branch has a current set of features. This is reduced work
 load for each change; at the expense of stashing integration knowledge
 deep in the entrails of the integration branch.

        I like the reduced work for each upload, and since it satisfies
 the use cases of being able to present upstream with a pure feature
 changeset; to be able to rapidly compare any feature branch against
 each other or upstream, and being able to maintain an integrated source
 tree for Debian packages, I am happy not to keep integration patches up
 to date.

        Now, if there is indeed a mechanism that can automatically keep
 up the integration patches and convert feature branches to an
 integrated source tree via a patch series, I'll gladly eat crow and try
 to convert over.  But I still want to keep pure feature branches, and I
 do not want to have to worry about integration all over again at every
 upload.

        Unless new information comes up on this thread, I am done.

        manoj
-- 
Reinhart was never his mother's favorite -- and he was an only
child. Thomas Berger
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta at debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>  
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