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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Making microbranches popular


From: Mirian Crzig Lennox
Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Making microbranches popular
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:03:10 -0500
User-agent: Gnus/5.090024 (Oort Gnus v0.24) Emacs/21.3 (berkeley-unix)

address@hidden (Tom Lord) writes:
>     > From: Jeffrey Yasskin <address@hidden>
>
>     > I seem to remember Tom saying that he was willing to make the version
>     > numbers more flexible if someone could provide a sort function for them.
>     > Am I delusional, and if not, is that offer still open? Would that fix
>     > this problem?
>
> I hope you're thinking of me saying that wrt to N-component version
> ids.   That work is done and has been in place for a long time.

I think what he may be referring to (and what I was thinking of when I
posted my initial question), was a thread concerning Debian-style
version number handling which took place in July of last year, and
culminated in you proposing the following, quoted below.  I apologise
for the length, but I didn't want to cut it down and possibly lose
critical details.

(Incidentally, I see that there is now a "grab" subcommand in tla-1.1,
though with different semantics than what you proposed and no
corresponding "announce".)


> > From: Tom Lord <address@hidden>
> > To: address@hidden
> > Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 08:13:32 -0700 (PDT)
> > Subject: [arch-users] grab and announce -- yes.  (Re: [...] Version sorting 
> > proposal)
> >
> > It seems to me that the root propblem people would like to solve is to
> > take an arbitrary name from a release or from a project "branch" (in
> > the expansive, non-specific arch sense), and have arch use that
> > arbitrary name to access the sources.
> >
> > For example, people would like to be able to somehow `tla get'
> > something called "linux-2.16ac" and wind up with a project tree
> > of those sources.
> >
> > Let's call those arbitrary names (like "linux-2.16ac") "external
> > names".
> >
> > There are some obstacles:  
> >
> > 1) In general, external names do not map on to the arch namespace
> >    without mangling.  We might say:
> >
> >     linux--ac--2.16
> >
> >    but some people find that objectionable or confusing.
> >
> >
> > 2) In general, what external names name, in arch terms, may vary.  Is
> >    linux-2.16ac the name of a specific revision?  Is it the a name for
> >    an arch version?  Is it the name for a revision or version of a
> >    top-level directory plus a multi-project configuration?   There's
> >    no one answer.
> >
> > On the list and an on #irc, some users have been working on the idea
> > of a `tla grab' command that addresses these problems in a more
> > comprehensive way than tweaking the arch namespace.  (I'm going to
> > leave names out here just because I don't have an accurate list handy
> > of who's been thinking about this.)
> >
> > The idea has expanded slightly, to having a pair of commands.
> >
> >
> >     % tla announce EXTERNAL-NAME [..???..]
> >
> >         Publish the mapping from some external name to the
> >         corresponding arch entities.
> >
> >
> >     % tla grab EXTERNAL-NAME [ARCHIVE-OR-LOCATION]
> >
> >         Retrieve he arch entities described by EXTERNAL-NAME.
> >
> >
> > So, ac might use:
> >
> >   % tla announce linux-2.16ac [... definition of that name ...]
> >
> > and then other people can use:
> >
> >   % tla grab linux-2.16ac http://arch.kernel.org/archives/address@hidden
> >        
> >
> > This is obviously far from a complete spec.   Unanswered questions
> > are:
> >
> >     1) What are the parameters to tla announce?
> >
> >            In other words, how can external names be defined?
> >
> >
> >     2) What does grab actually do?
> >
> >            What does the definition of an extern name _mean_?
> >
> >
> >     3) Other commands?
> >
> >        Do other commands use external names?   New commands? 
> >            If so, how?  Perhaps, for example, external names can 
> >            be used as part of a higher-level interface to configs.
> >
> >
> >         4) Implementation?
> >
> >        On #irc, we've talked about implementing this as new 
> >            "stuff" in =meta-info in archives.   I'm having second
> >            thoughts about that:   perhaps external names should
> >            be automatically managed, specially-named versions.
> >
> >            XX-Externs--linux78-2x2e16ac--1.0
> >
> >            where the the revisions in that version contain a single
> >            file (the definition of the name) and each log message 
> >            contains a copy of the latest definition.
> >

cheers,
Mirian




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