[RFC doc] Tracking git.git

[RFC doc] Tracking git.git

[Bagas Sanjaya]

Hi,

Some people (most notably Git developers here and me) like to run Git
compiled from git.git repository, as opposed to normal users that run
either Git from distribution or compiled from official source tarball.

In git.git repo, besides master, there is also next, seen, and maint
branches. The purposes of these branches are described on
Documentation/howto/maintain-git.txt.

When we have git.git repo clone and track it, tracking master, next,
and maint are easy peasy: git pull will do the job. But tracking seen
is more like tracking linux-next. We do NOT use git pull because
often doing so will try to merge origin (upstream) with our local
version, which are divergent and most likely will end with conflict.
Instead, we do git fetch first followed by resetting to upstream by
git reset --hard origin/seen.

Should the fact above be documented? And on what file the fact should
be placed? In INSTALL?

-- 
An old man doll... just what I always wanted! - Clara

Re: [RFC doc] Tracking git.git

[dwh]

On 13.05.2021 20:05, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>But tracking seen is more like tracking linux-next. We do NOT use git
>pull because often doing so will try to merge origin (upstream) with
>our local version, which are divergent and most likely will end with
>conflict.  Instead, we do git fetch first followed by resetting to
>upstream by git reset --hard origin/seen.
>
>Should the fact above be documented? And on what file the fact should
>be placed? In INSTALL?

I vote yes. I was trying out tracking the different branches and got
bitten by this very situation (tons of conflicts) when pulling seen.

Cheers!
Dave

Re: [RFC doc] Tracking git.git

[Junio C Hamano]

dwh@linuxprogrammer.org writes:

> On 13.05.2021 20:05, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>>But tracking seen is more like tracking linux-next. We do NOT use git
>>pull because often doing so will try to merge origin (upstream) with
>>our local version, which are divergent and most likely will end with
>>conflict.  Instead, we do git fetch first followed by resetting to
>>upstream by git reset --hard origin/seen.
>>
>>Should the fact above be documented? And on what file the fact should
>>be placed? In INSTALL?
>
> I vote yes. I was trying out tracking the different branches and got
> bitten by this very situation (tons of conflicts) when pulling seen.

I vote checking for existing docs before doing this, though.  I
would be surprised if we do not say "do not build on (fork from)
'seen' (formerly known as 'pu')".

Re: [RFC doc] Tracking git.git

[Felipe Contreras]

dwh@ wrote:
> On 13.05.2021 20:05, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
> >But tracking seen is more like tracking linux-next. We do NOT use git
> >pull because often doing so will try to merge origin (upstream) with
> >our local version, which are divergent and most likely will end with
> >conflict.  Instead, we do git fetch first followed by resetting to
> >upstream by git reset --hard origin/seen.
> >
> >Should the fact above be documented? And on what file the fact should
> >be placed? In INSTALL?
> 
> I vote yes. I was trying out tracking the different branches and got
> bitten by this very situation (tons of conflicts) when pulling seen.

git pull is evil.

For more than a decade we've had unending debates about how to fix it,
and nothing comes out of them (last one being [1]).

Just don't use it, and tell your friends to not use it.

Always do `git fetch` plus either one of these:

 1. git merge --ff-only
 2. git rebase
 3. git merge --no-ff
 4. git reset --hard @{upstream}

Cheers.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/20201208002648.1370414-1-felipe.contreras@gmail.com/

-- 
Felipe Contreras