From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/68885 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel,gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: bzr for Gnus (was: Switching to bzr: what Emacs developers should know?) Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:28:44 +0900 Message-ID: <87zla5ob1v.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <874osi6zpe.fsf@bzg.ath.cx> <28c656e20908081151h55a4b566v4cfc7c49c5ca2a37@mail.gmail.com> <87ab26aoix.fsf@canonical.com> <87r5vimb65.fsf_-_@lifelogs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1250054455 11738 80.91.229.12 (12 Aug 2009 05:20:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:20:55 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding@gnus.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Ted Zlatanov Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Aug 12 07:20:48 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Mb6GV-0001fO-G0 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:20:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:56823 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Mb6GT-0000MR-3L for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:20:45 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Mb6GK-0000M7-6n for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:20:36 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Mb6GF-0000LN-Cm for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:20:35 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=54318 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Mb6GE-0000LI-Tp for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:20:31 -0400 Original-Received: from mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:57628) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Mb6GE-0002Rh-3Q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:20:30 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mtps02.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4484D820F; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:20:27 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 101601A27DB; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:28:45 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: <87r5vimb65.fsf_-_@lifelogs.com> X-Mailer: VM 8.0.12-devo-585 under 21.5 (beta29) "garbanzo" 5bbff3553494+ XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:114124 gmane.emacs.gnus.general:68885 Archived-At: Bcc'ing some of the people mentioned below as "concerned with XEmacs packages" to ensure they see this post. Sorry for any dupes. Ted Zlatanov writes: > FWIW, I'd be happy switching to bzr for Gnus work. I don't know how > well that would work for the following common needs: > > - pull Gnus independently (for XEmacs users, including compatibility > libraries) > > - pull Gnus by itself (no compatibility libraries, for Emacs users) bzr doesn't support this out of the box, yet. Support for such "nested trees" is planned (greatly desired by many users) but implementation is not yet scheduled AIUI (there are some design details to work out). I don't speak for the bzr developers, but based on the history of features I've followed on the bazaar@canonical list I would be impressed if it stabilizes[1] in less than 6 months, and a little surprised if it takes more than 12 to implement and stabilize. bzr does support a "branch filtering" capability which could be used to emulate this. I'm not sure exactly how it works but it uses the fastimport feature, so it could be done on the Gnus side basically like maintaining a bidirectional mirror of a repo in a different VCS, except that all the difficulties related to "impedence mismatch" between VCSes would be avoided. A final option for nesting trees would be to use git or Mercurial to host the tricky parts; both have facilities (in git it's called "submodule") for handling the inclusion of Gnus in Emacs. git's is limited in the sense that nesting of submodules in submodules is not supported, but probably it would be be reasonably convenient to have a separate XEmacs branch which contains the XEmacs compatibility code. git would be my weapon of choice. An alternative to a kludgy nest of "xmas" in Gnus in Emacs would be to maintain the XEmacs compatibility code only in XEmacs package CVS, and not have it in Gnus "upstream" at all. Mike Kupfer has the authority to nominate committers for the Gnus package and normally access would be enabled within about 48 hours (an ssh key and user name are required so there's typically a bit of back and forth needed), and if he decides he likes the idea, that's good enough for us. (He'll probably consult with other directly interested parties such as Steve Youngs and Norbert Koch, of course, but the authority is his.) Of course that would involve some annoyance (eg, dealing with a separate checkout from our CVS as well as the mainline from Emacs's bzr) for anybody working on "xmas" code, but it's an option we can consider. Folks like Mike and Steve Youngs have done something similar to that for a long time, so they can give accurate advice on the amount of burden involved. Footnotes: [1] "Stabilize" in the sense of "at least as stable as a late prerelease of Emacs".