Re: Branches are Scary

[Ingo Lohmar]

Hi Phillip,

On Thu, Dec 17 2015 21:25 (+0000), Phillip Lord wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone could describe the git setup wrt to branches
> on the main Emacs git.

>
> I always find deleting branches (that I have created) rather an unhappy
> experience, as I worry that I will do the wrong thing, and accidentally
> delete emacs-25.

If you only delete local branches, that should not happen without your
explicit consent (unless you are using a fairly malicious interface on
top of plain git).

>
> At the same time, if I am understanding things correctly, I can't squash
> and force feature and fix branches that I have pushed up, which means
> that these have to get deleted unmerged cause I squash and merge locally.

It seems that *this* is the actual problem to solve.  The rule of thumb
is simple: Do not squash or rebase any commits you have pushed out, it
makes life hard for everybody else, that's why it's not allowed in the
repository.  If you still plan substantial cleanup of your commits, just
do not push them yet.

I am also unsure whether force-deleting branches in the emacs repo is
permitted, but it does not matter: Please do not try to work around the
restrictions by deleting branches.

>
> Perhaps I am worried about this unnecessarily. Can I delete emacs-25 or
> master by mistake? And, at the same time, is it possible to squash
> things in other branches?
>
> Phil

The concept of squashing is fairly unrelated to the concept of branches.
The rules are the same for all commits, wherever they are.

Ingo