Re: Workflow to accumulate individual changes?

[Óscar Fuentes]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> That said, what you propose could work, but of course it's quite
>> hackish. Let's hope someday the rebase plugin will grow an option to
>> rebase interactively, stopping before the commit.
>
> Except that most experts on bzr I've read say rebasing is the wrong
> way to go[1].

It often is. In *this* case it is not wrong nor right. It is just what
does the job. Please note the big IFs in my answer to Juanma.

> So I think we should not flee to that corner so easily, upon bumping
> on the first problematic issue.

Agreed. If anyone thinks that rebase it the solution for his problem,
please ask here first.

> ChangeLog files will present a problem for feature branches and
> quick-fix branches alike.

Very true. On Juanma's case, if he accumulated a signicant number of
small changes, rebasing can save quite a bit of work compared to
creating a patch, applying it, re-writing a commit message and commit
for each change. Or merging one change, edit the ChangeLog, write the
commit message, commit and repeat for the next change (which possibly is
the most orthodox solution and recommendable if the amount of changes is
moderate.)

> Though an annoyance, I don't see how it is a problem significant
> enough to recommend rebase as the main vehicle of routine work, given
> the downside of rebasing (rewriting history etc.).

The history is rewritten at Juanma's end. For the rest of users, the
final result is indistinguishable of the case where Juanma commits a
series of small changes on a fast sequence.

> Am I missing something?

Yes. That `goto' is evil but sometimes it has its uses :-)

I concede that rebase here can be questionable as the most efficient or
dumb-proof solution (you have to be very careful or the whole process
can be ruined and repeated; it is strongly advised to backup your branch
first.)

The ChangeLog is a big incovenience for working locally while upstream
access is restricted. I hope that after some time, people will
experience the fact that a ChangeLog is completely redundant on a
changeset-based VCS.

-- 
Óscar