Re: [Jsynthlib-devel] Name for refactored branch

[William Z. <wrz...@po...>]

On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Joe Emenaker <jo...@em...> wrote:

>  3a) Branch off 2.0 and let bug-fixing happen there while new features
> and development toward 3.0 happen in trunk.
>  3b) Branch off a copy of trunk for work on 3.0, while the bug fixes
> for 2.0 happen in trunk. When 2.0 is released, a tag is made for the
> current state of trunk, and then the 3.0 branch is merged back into
> trunk, and then the 3.0 branch can be deleted.
>

Nice thing about Subversion is that there is no difference between "tags"
and "branches".  Each is a copy of the repository as of some point in time.
Or more precisely, *a* repository, since you can make branches off of other
branches.  Or branches from tags.  Or tags from branches.  You can check out
a tag, then commit changes as if it was a branch.  Because it *is* a branch.

So /trunk is nothing more than the "blessed branch".  And the difference
between /tags and /branches is entirely political, and not at all
technical.  In general, /tags is mean to hold *past* states of the system
(i.e. we branch /trunk to form /tags/release_20, then continue development
on /trunk).  And /branches is mean to hold *future* states of the system
(i.e. we continue updating drivers under /trunk, while Joe builds his new
version under /branches/emenaker_refactor).

And 3a is the best simply because one should stay away from merging wherever
possible.  And it's pretty much free, since it's always good to create a tag
for every version that is released.

-Bill Zwicky