Re: How to cope with patches sanely

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Matthew Johnson <mjj29@debian.org> writes:

> Also: * The package format should be standardised such that the same
>         workflow works for everyone.

Not necessarily the pacakge *format*. The request you seem to be
referring to was that of Lars, when he requested that a specific
sequence of operations should work for every source package. That's an
issue of the *interface*, much more than the format.

Currently, that request is fullfillable with either of "don't track
changes, mix everything into foo.diff.gz" or "track changes in a VCS,
use automated tools to build foo.diff.gz when building the source
package". It is not met by patch bundle systems.

> This implies to me that those who dislike patch systems and like
> DVCS workflows wish to standardise on the latter.

Not that I've seen, no. What I have seen is the argument that a
VCS-based workflow doesn't impose the internal workings on the
one-time source modification contributor the way that patch bundle
workflows do.

This has accordingly been held up as an advantage of VCS-based
workflow, with which I agree.

I've not seen it held up as an argument to force anyone to use a
specific tool or workflow, and with that I would disagree.

-- 
 \              "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very |
  `\                        important that you do it." —Mahatma Gandhi |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney