Re: [Caml-list] bug-fix branches

[Sven LUTHER <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2002 at 04:11:29PM +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote:
> > Xavier, don't you think it would be a good time for going with a dual cvs
> > branch scheme or something like that, where you have a released branch
> > (3.05, and bugfix releases : 3.05.1, 3.05.2, etc) and a development
> > branch (which will become 3.06).
> 
> The need for this isn't apparent yet: we haven't yet encountered a
> situation where a show-stopper bug appears, but the main CVS branch is
> far from a releasable state.  One reason for this is that major
> evolutions of the system, e.g. polymorphic methods or dynamic loading
> of C libraries, are carried on separate branches, and merged back only
> when they are in a usable state.  

Ok, i didn't know that.

> > In this case, will you revert all your changes and reapply after having
> > released the bugfix version, hurry the developpment so you can ship the
> > new version fixing the bug, or just let the bug stay until the next
> > version is released ?
> 
> If that happens, we'll do what works best, and that might very well be
> a bugfix branch.  But, frankly, this is our internal "cuisine", and I
> don't see why you and other users should care.

Because it is easier to simply get a cvs version out of the bugfix
branch than having to look at the current cvs branch and extract from it
a bugfix patch, which may, or may not easily apply to the current
released version.

You know i did this for the powerpc fix for 3.04, and this doesn't apply
so much to big errors, which are often discovered early and were you do
a bugfix release, but for smaller problems for which you don't
necessarily think they would need a bugfix release.

Anyway, i was just asking, and i didn't know about the separate branches
for major evolutions, i guess this means that it will always be easy to
get a patch i need out of cvs and apply it to the released version.

But then, i know that you don't like for distributors to have versions
of ocaml which differ from the official releases, and having minor patch
number would help in identifying what the user is running exactly,
without having to remember that he is running debian and that i had to
apply this or that patch.

Anyway, i was just asking, if you feel it is your internal "cuisine" and
we should not meddle with it, i will understand.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
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