Re: [Caml-list] Trivial compiler patches

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 04:16:48PM +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> I have to say that a number of projects I've been involved with have
> rejected github pulls as a method of working on patches.  I think the
> main reasons are:
> 
>  - A mailing list allows you to use your regular editor when
>    commenting.
> 
>  - A mailing list provides a text-based, open archive of historical
>    discussions of patches.

And makes it hard to follow or later trace the developement due to the
amount of intermixed mails.

Rebasing a patch set for every change also makes it hard to follow
since rebase destroys history. So far revision control systems lack
that extra dimension needed to track the developement of a patch set
over time.

So overall there is no ideal solution yet. As you say below it is
still an unsolved problem.

>  - github pulls always(?) turn into merge commits, instead of a
>    linear history.

That happens when you merge pull requests via the web interface. You
don't have to.

Also does that realy hold true if the pull request is based on the
HEAD of the main branch and only has one commit (only one patch in the
set)? That would create a merge with 2 parents that are both the same.
 
>  - github is closed source

I don't mind. It is free as in beer, it works and it doesn't poison
your project (no lock in). You can always just use plain git at any
time, which is free.
 
>  - AFAIK github is not integrated into any CI system (compare, say,
>    Gerrit + Jenkins -- although Gerrit + Jenkins have their share of
>    problems as well).
> 
> Now this is not to say that github will not work well for the OCaml
> community.
> 
> Personally I don't think that patch review is anywhere close to being
> a solved problem.  It's an important area requiring much more
> research!
> 
> Rich.

Maybe once it is solved someone will implement a nice free platform
for it. Till then lets see what other people come up with, free or not.

MfG
	Goswin