[Python-Dev] PEP 374 (DVCS) now in reST

[Brett Cannon]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:37, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
>> There's a possible third way.  I've heard (though haven't investigated)
>> that some people are working on supporting the svn wire protocol in the
>> bzr server.  This would mean that anybody who's still comfortable with
>> svn and feels no need to change their current habits can continue to
>> work the way they always have.  Those that want the extra benefits of a
>> DVCS, or who do not have commit access to the code.python.org branches
>> would have viable alternatives.
>
> Of course, those without commit access *already* have viable
> alternatives, IIUC, by means of the automatic ongoing conversion of
> the svn repository to bzr and hg (and, IIUC, git - or perhaps you
> can use git-svn without the need for server-side conversion).
>
> So a conversion to a DVCS would only benefit those committers who
> see a benefit in using a DVCS (*) (and would put a burden on those
> committers who see a DVCS as a burden). It would also put a burden
> on contributors who are uncomfortable with using a DVCS.
>
> Regards,
> Martin
>
> (*) I'm probably missing something, but ISTM that committers can already
> use the DVCS - they only need to create a patch just before committing.
> This, of course, is somewhat more complicated than directly pushing the
> changes to the server, but it still gives them most of what is often
> reported as the advantage of a DVCS (local commits, ability to have many
> branches simultaneously, ability to share work-in-progress, etc). In
> essence, committers wanting to use a DVCS can do so today, by acting
> as if they were non-committers, and only using svn for actual changes
> to the master repository.
>

If I can't choose a clear winner I am going to look into what it take
to run directly on top of svn to avoid the extra step for committers.
Otherwise I will get standardized instructions for the three DVCSs and
maybe write a script or three to make it dead-simple to work with the
DVCSs but have our official repository be svn so we can all use the
DVCSs as we see fit until a clear winner springs up.

-Brett