[Python-Dev] I am now lost - committed, pulled, merged, what is "collapse"?

[Terry Reedy]

On 3/21/2011 7:14 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:

> hg broadens the check and complains if *any* files are not up to date
> on any of the branches being pushed, thus making it a requirement to
> do a hg pull and merge on all affected branches before the hg push can
> succeed. In theory, this provides an opportunity for the developer
> doing the merge to double check that it didn't break anything, in
> practice (at least in the near term) we're more likely to see an
> SVN-like practice of pushing the merged changes without rerunning the
> full test suite.

Now that you and John have (finally) explained how 'non-conflict' merges 
can actually contain a conflict (and there could be such for docs as 
well as code*), I think there is a pretty clear guideline for when to 
re-test.

If my change adds or changes in one file a reference to something in 
another file, or changes or subtracts in one file something that might 
be referenced by other files, and the the change could affect the 
cross-file linkage, and the pulled changes merged with my changes might 
have such linkages, then I should rerun tests on the new merged state. 
(I say 'might' because it is easier and safer to just rerun than to 
check very hard.) Otherwise, it should be safe not to. Correct?

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy