Re: [PATCH v4 0/3] t: improve compatibility with NixOS

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 13, 2023, 23:42 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqcywd43vz.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <ZVHM-0d7g45P3Uoj@tanuki>

Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:

> Fair enough. I assumed that it would ease your workload instead of
> creating more work for you. But I'll keep in mind that it doesn't and
> refrain from doing this in the future.

Thanks.

With or without conflicts, basing your work on 'next' would not be a good idea to begin with, as we never merge 'next' down to 'master' (we only merge individual topics).

The following applies not specifically to you but to all contributors.

What is helpful is in a tricky case is to start your topic branch development at an appropriate base (often the tip of 'master', but for a bugfix the tip of 'maint'), merge in other topics in flight you depend on that are not in the target base (which limits what you can depend on if you are writing a bugfix on 'maint'), and then start building on top of the merge result. Then communicate how you built this (artificial) base clearly in your cover letter.

Whether you have "other topics in flight" merged to your base or not, creating a trial merge of your topic to seen to see how others' work-in-progress may interact with your work would be a valuable way to keep aware of what is cooking and how you will be affected.

Thanks.