Re: [PATCH] Remove perl dependant commands if NO_PERL is set

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 3, 2015, 20:15 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqr3mfi7jb.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <86C44806-98FB-4E67-83DF-197103B48BB2@FreeBSD.org>

Renato Botelho <garga@FreeBSD.org> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

>> Not really.  Anything brand-new that comes this late in the cycle
>> will not be in 2.6, so the earliest release this NO_PERL change can
>> appear in is one after the upcoming release.
>
> Even if it’s a bug that produce a broken installation?

Absolutely.

The way we do things around here is to do new features early in the cycle before -rc0, fixes to pre-existing bugs before -rc1 and after that we go to regression fixes only until the final. And use of Perl in submodule or request-pull is anything new in 2.6, I think.

This is a fix to pre-existing issue, and I haven't tagged -rc1 yet, but speaking from experience, anything that I can poke a hole after staring at it for only 20 seconds (see my other message about this patch defining two different ways to build the same thing) has a high chance of having other issues that will hurt other people in a way other than the trivial "staring at it for 20-second" issue, which would introduce a real regression.

Between an unknown regression and a known longstanding bug, we tend to take the latter.

> Nevermind, I’ll add the patch into FreeBSD ports so FreeBSD users can
> have a sane package installed.

Sure. That would help in the long term, as it will result in a well-cooked fix in 2.7; by that time hopefully the 'submodule' bit would not be necessary, but request-pull may still be using Perl.