Re: Checkout the sources for the release branch (with proposed new file)

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Lennart!

On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 02:14:36AM +0200, Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote:
> Jason Rumney wrote:
> >Lennart Borgman (gmail) wrote:
> >>The information about EMACS_22_BASE is specific to Emacs. Where would
> >>you suggest to put that information?

> >It is probably useful to list the active branches somewhere, but that
> >is a different matter than handholding users through the exact CVS
> >commands to use in every circumstance.

> I do not think there is anything wrong with handholding per se as long
> as it does not lead to cluttering of the information.

> I think the way that saves most time should be used. And then the
> normal thinking may apply: there are probably many times more readers
> than writers. (And many of them can potentially be helpful with Emacs.)

I tend to agree with you about hand-holding.  Far too often on technical
forums one sees "RTFM", often written by people who have forgotten how
difficult it is to find the FM, or even the pertinent part of the FM.  I
find this unhelpful and frequently objectionable.  Surely we're supposed
to be helping eachother?

I think a far better approach than "RTFM" is simply to write a one line
answer, as Chong has done.  Even better is to supplement this by
directing the asker to the right page in the right manual.

I believe there should a file in savannah listing our CVS branches, it
should be at the top level, and it should be called
description-of-branches.txt (not some meaningless overlookable name like
"branches.txt").

Here is a prototype of what that file might look like (with
acknowledgement to Kevin Rogers who answered my Usenet post of 2004 which
asked what all the branches were):

#########################################################################

This file summarises the branches which exist in the Emacs CVS repository.
Additionally, there is an arch repository, maintained by Miles Bader.

If you want to check out a particular branch of the Emacs CVS, use a command
like this:

    cvs -z3 -d:pserver:address@hidden:/sources/emacs \
        checkoout -r EMACS_22_BASE emacs

.  If you already have the CVS sources on your machine and want to change the
branch they're on, use a command like this (from the top level directory):

    cvs update -r EMACS_22_BASE

.  Full details of these commands are in the CVS manual, page "Accessing
Branches".

Here is a summary of the branches - not all of them are being actively
developed:

o - MAIN (also known as "the trunk"): The trunk is where new features and bug
  fixes are committed.  At some stage in the future, the changes accumulated
  here will be released as Emacs 23.

o - EMACS_22_BASE: this branch is about to be released as Emacs 22.1.
  Currently (2007-05-24), only urgent bug fixes should be committed here - ask
  RMS first.  Any such fixes should also be made in the trunk.

o - multi_tty: For several tty's in a single Emacs instance.

o - lexbind: An Emacs whose Lisp has been enhanced to use lexical binding of
  variables.

o - emacs-bidi: "bi-directional": An Emacs which supports both left-to-right
  and right-to-left languages in a single session.

o - unicode-xft:

o - emacs-unicode-2:
 
o - rmail-mbox-branch:

o - gnus-5_10-branch:
#########################################################################

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).