On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 05:26:57PM -0800, Steve Morin wrote:
I have done to a couple presentations on Mecurial but If people are working on a common project I am not sure there is a usual need to create your own branch. If I am doing work I am not sharing with others I get my own copy or setup my own repository. Otherwise I am usually commiting to the main project, and work the with project maintainer for a branch if it's a serious effort that needs that or else you for the project if you can't see eye to eye with the "establishment"
I create top branches for many changes. One workflow that works well:
- I create a topic branch and work on a change - I generate a patch and email it around for feedback. - I make some changes and amend the branch (which I can only do on a private branch, before I merge it in). - I might fix up earlier parts of my patch. - Once all are satisfied, I push a nice clean change through.
Once email gets involved and waiting for feedback, you either work on one change at a time, and spend most of your time waiting, or you use topic branches. What seems to happen with non-distributed/lightweight-branch systems is that the history ends up filled with half-baked changes that don't really have a coherency.
But, with a distributed system, you always get at least one branch, since your workspace is a branch.
David