From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 18691 invoked by alias); 24 Jan 2014 10:09:12 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sourceware.org Received: (qmail 18680 invoked by uid 89); 24 Jan 2014 10:09:11 -0000 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; auth=none X-Virus-Found: No X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-1.1 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW,SPF_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-HELO: mail-ie0-f181.google.com Received: from mail-ie0-f181.google.com (HELO mail-ie0-f181.google.com) (209.85.223.181) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.93/v0.84-503-g423c35a) with (AES128-SHA encrypted) ESMTPS; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 10:09:08 +0000 Received: by mail-ie0-f181.google.com with SMTP id tq11so2596958ieb.12 for ; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 02:09:06 -0800 (PST) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=WrrLKUUHMVshsDiCMxEqvX23UpQdVqWyHiMXNUQRtIY=; b=lnaUflW6Spq6RNo0+Ary06DflcrL9G+bEre1zNYGKXtUKUtVickZ4lLRvECLOJ7UVC E2EbC3573ISYev8pMhjYwo4aPlxZL7FC8dp9sZFwuk/jrN1BTZJa79zBIDZ7HL62PStd FDrdigbNhZuXW8tnNoVniL5wrB7FXhkAWRCgollICuSb7G8Is5UU6HGTdarWG4VZOF+6 HOv7DnHwfPY5QtZR4W9niIA30/Et2Bl16OTkSwo5KTwcpZ3CwEs2gIV5Mho/aiXsq69A aQktUCGKgFJwPxkTMChIj8T9fnr9/x3ptuD/rHyB8666PidxI+OYDB8kk3aRa8+a9xzF iYdQ== X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQlNzWAwJwNXmlq45OKnRaqt5+9I1Oe7gKP5lA5rGX8ENDn2ukYYgfy+PwhIouxzBztDiDKn MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.50.25.129 with SMTP id c1mr3645484igg.23.1390558146339; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 02:09:06 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.64.20.52 with HTTP; Fri, 24 Jan 2014 02:09:06 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <83eh3xep43.fsf@gnu.org> References: <20140122051133.GB4762@adacore.com> <83r480f2r2.fsf@gnu.org> <20140122161520.GF4762@adacore.com> <83bnz4ezst.fsf@gnu.org> <83wqhqekpp.fsf@gnu.org> <83ha8tersb.fsf@gnu.org> <20140124080703.GL4762@adacore.com> <83eh3xep43.fsf@gnu.org> Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 10:09:00 -0000 Message-ID: Subject: Re: reject merges on gdb release branches? From: Will Newton To: Eli Zaretskii Cc: Joel Brobecker , ricard.wanderlof@axis.com, "gdb-patches@sourceware.org" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-IsSubscribed: yes X-SW-Source: 2014-01/txt/msg00927.txt.bz2 On 24 January 2014 08:54, Eli Zaretskii wrote: >> Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:07:03 +0400 >> From: Joel Brobecker >> Cc: Ricard Wanderlof , >> gdb-patches@sourceware.org >> >> I think we cannot expect all our contributors to know git well, and >> for those who don't have a good command of that tool, branch merges >> are more difficult to understand than simple commits. > > But this sounds backwards. Merging from a branch is a single git > command, while rebasing requires much more, and requires also > understanding of what rebasing means and does. We are actually > requiring contributors to know more of git, not less. >From the committers side, yes, disallowing merge commits makes life slightly harder. You have to rebase your work onto master (or the branch you wish to commit to) before committing. But from the perspective of someone browsing the history merge commits are more complex to understand. Disallowing merge commits is for the benefit of the future readers of the commit history not for the benefit of the committer. The problem with merge commits is they make the history noisy. If I have a long running development branch I could have lots of: Merge branch 'master' Commits that don't serve any function. Yes, they mark that I merged master at that point, but if the changes do not interact with mine that is irrelevant and if they do then I no longer have a standalone commit I can point to as "the feature was added in commit 123abc". Even worse if people work on master and have a "git commit; git pull; git push" workflow then you can get almost one merge commit per-commit which makes browsing the history a real mess. Merge commits should not be allowed on master or release branches IMO. -- Will Newton Toolchain Working Group, Linaro