[Monotone-devel] Re: planning for resurrection

[Hendrik Boom]

On Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:54:00 -0400, hendrik wrote:

> In another thread, I recently said,
> 
>> Now there are some large files that were build as part of normal
>> development, but were abandoned because of sustem limitations long ago.
>>  While I don't expect to develop in these directions myself, others
>> might well want to.
> 
>> If I check them in, and then delete them, they will be part of the
>> historical record, but it will be impossible to resurrect them later,
>> because of die die die merge.  So this is perhaps not the way to go.
> 
>> But if I don't delete them they will remain in the head of the active
>> project whether they are used or not.  This is also undesirable.
> 
>> Is there some clever way around this?  Would branches help?
> 
> Reading some more in the mailing list, I find that resurrection is a
> sore point.  But since it's unlikely that anyone will be doing anything
> with the abandoned files until someone decides to resurrect them, it
> would seem to suffice to check in a new file sometime in the future that
> happens to be the same as the old file.  There won't be revisions from
> the graves coming back to haunt us later -- just revisions on the
> resurrected file.
> 
> So I can, for now, just check the ancient relics in and delete them.
> 
> Does anyone see problems with this approach?  Or is there a better one?
> 
> -- hendrik

I guess there's the technique of checking the abandonware into a 
different branch, and just leaving it there.  Some of it could be other 
versions of  main-branch files, but they have diverged so much that they 
are effectively unmergeable at this point.

Would this work?  Or does it have unforeseen side effects?

-- hendrik