[GNC-dev] Git branches

[David T.]

No problem. I don't profess to be much of an expert on these points. Thanks for replying. 

⁣David T. ​

On Nov 14, 2022, 9:23 PM, at 9:23 PM, john <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
>David,
>
>Unfortunately that's ambiguous without explaining that in that
>particular context release means major release series. In ordinary
>usage the current release is 4.12; it can't get any more commits. The
>next release is 4.13 and will release off what we now call the maint
>branch.
>
>Regards,
>John Ralls
>
>
>> On Nov 14, 2022, at 10:05 AM, David T. via gnucash-devel
><gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Not that my opinion carries much weight on this, but
>"current-release" and "next-release" might be a reasonable set of
>options that are less wordy but still clear?
>> ⁣
>> David T.​
>> 
>> On Nov 14, 2022, 19:17, at 19:17, Geert Janssens
><geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
>>> This had been brewing in my mind as well, so thanks for bringing
>this
>>> up.
>>> 
>>> When I considered alternative branch names I initially thought of
>>> "stable" vs "development" 
>>> or "devel" with an optional "unstable" at times of pre-releases. 
>>> 
>>> However when thinking this through some more I started wondering
>>> whether we really 
>>> should limit ourselves to just two (or three) branch names.
>>> 
>>> We could also name our branches "4.x", "5.x" and so on to indicate
>the
>>> release series this 
>>> branch is for. At some point we just stop using the older branches.
>We
>>> can choose to drop 
>>> them or just leave them in the git history as it suits is best.
>>> 
>>> Both naming schemes have advantages and drawbacks. I like the direct
>>> relationship 
>>> between branch name and releases that will be on it for the latter
>>> scheme. Although I admit 
>>> this relationship doesn't hold for the pre-releases, unless we make
>>> that a separate branch for 
>>> those like eg "4.9xx".
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> Geert
>>> 
>>> Op zondag 13 november 2022 21:40:14 CET schreef john:
>>>> Since Geert brought up our relationship with Github I thought it
>>> timely to
>>>> start a discussion about a related trend: The name of the git
>>> repository's
>>>> primary branches. There's an ongoing effort in the software
>>> development
>>>> community for the last 25-30 years or so to remove the terms master
>>> and
>>>> slave; originally when used together (as in processes) but more
>>> recently
>>>> when used alone. This recently includes the name of the primary
>>> branch in a
>>>> git repository. The Gitlab folks have a nice summary at
>>>> 
>>>
>https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/03/10/new-git-default-branch-name/.
>>>> 
>>>> 'Master' was the standard when we started using git 10 years ago
>and
>>> so we
>>>> adopted it and still use it. Aside from the cultural sensitivity
>>> issues
>>>> (primarily in the United States because of our unfortunate history
>>> with
>>>> forced importation and enslavement of Africans) it has proved to be
>a
>>> bit
>>>> confusing to new contributors.
>>>> 
>>>> The new standard default is 'main'. I think that would be fine for
>>> htdocs
>>>> where we have master and beta: Main would better express that
>that's
>>> the
>>>> branch that you see when you visit https://www.gnucash.org
>>>> <https://www.gnucash.org/>. The gnucash-on-foo repositories for the
>>> build
>>>> processes have only master branches so it doesn't really matter
>what
>>> the
>>>> branch is called.
>>>> 
>>>> I don't think 'main' is the right name for gnucash or gnucash-docs
>>> because
>>>> it does nothing about the confusion factor. Note that the default
>>> branch on
>>>> those two is maint but we still use master for the next major
>>> release's
>>>> branch. The most expressive titles would be current-major-release
>and
>>>> next-major-release but they're a bit wordy; OTOH just current (or
>>> curr) and
>>>> next leave a new contributor to ask current and next what? maint is
>>> concise
>>>> and not terrible for a branch that gets only bug fixes and small
>>> features.
>>>> Lots of generic names for the next-major-release branch (future,
>>> devel or
>>>> development, major-change) come to mind but I'm not sure that any
>of
>>> them
>>>> clearly express the intent of the branch.
>>>> 
>>>> Comments?
>>>> 
>>>> Regards,
>>>> John Ralls
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> gnucash-devel mailing list
>>>> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
>>>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
>>> 
>>> 
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