[Gnu-arch-users] Re: Archive cycling

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Also, while I understand that tla makes cycling reasonably easy (at least
>> enormously easier than CVS), it still seems annoying, since you have to
>> tell the world that the location of the head has now changed.
> Yup.   Hasn't been much of a problem for me yet.   I've cycled a few times.

Fair enough, but maybe it has been a hassle for those following your work?

>> All in all, it seems it would be preferable if we could move "the tail"
>> of an archive: i.e. keep the same archive as the head, but move old patches
>> to some other place (like offline/backup/slow/remote server).  It could be
>> done transparently to the people working on the head.

> I think that, by the time you get the details down, you'll find that
> that's a hairy mess.

Well, that's what I expect from breaking fundamental invariants ;-)

> However, you can do something just about as good pretty
> straightforwardly -- by creating new revisions in the new repository
> that simply repeat the last N revisions from the old repository.   For
> example, let's suppose that I'm cycling address@hidden to --2005.
> In the new archive I could create:

So you're suggesting to replace the archive-crossing with
a branch-crossing.

>       tla--devo-2004--1.4
> in which base-0...patch-N emulate the last N+1 patch from the --2004
> archive, and then add:
>       tla--devo--1.4
> whose base-0 is a tag of tla--devo-2004--1.4--patch-N

Or you could just forget about tla--devo--1.4, name tla--devo-2004--1.4
tla--devo--1.4 and keep working there so as to eliminate the
branch-crossing .... Hmm .... not that bad.


        Stefan