[Bioperl-l] git branches, tags, 'topic/bug_####'

[Hilmar Lapp]

On May 13, 2010, at 9:49 AM, Chris Fields wrote:

> Re: deletion of branches, I'm only really in support of deleting  
> feature branches that have been merged back to 'master' or another  
> branch (e.g. only removed using 'git branch -d foo').

I agree.

>  Older subversion release branches don't tend to fall into that  
> category, in that we had merged or cherry-picked changes from svn  
> trunk to them, not vice versa; they were never merged back to  
> trunk.  Deletion in this case would be somewhat history-revising,  
> correct?

I wouldn't call it history-revising. I also think it's OK to delete  
release branches that are no longer supported, iff we have a tag for  
the release itself.

That's different from counting inactivity. A branch may lie dormant  
for a year or longer until someone has time to pick it back up again -  
I don't see the harm in keeping those around.

> Saying that, we could adopt a workflow policy that allows deletion  
> of any merged branch.  All this suggests coming up with a good  
> 'Contributing' document.

That would be highly useful. I'll also voice a word of caution here  
though - I find it kind of ironic that the switch to git, which is  
supposed to make contribution *easier*, very often leads subsequently  
to complex commit/pull/push/branching workflows being instituted for  
projects that take pages and pages to document, a lot of time to  
ingest, and discipline to follow - it seems to be very easy and  
tempting to go overboard with this.

	-hilmar

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: Hilmar Lapp -:- Durham, NC -:- hlapp at drycafe dot net :
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