Using bazaar (baz)

[Jérôme Marant]

Rob Browning <rlb@defaultvalue.org> writes:

> Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@free.fr> writes:
>
>> I think we can use bazaar instead of tla: it is fully compatible
>> with tla, its CLI is simpler, and it brings some optimizations.
>>
>> Currently, only 1.1.1 is in unstable. 1.2 was released recently,
>> I grabbed it from http://bazaar.canonical.com/releases/debs/
>
> Hmm.  While baz sounds interesting, I had been planning to wait a
> while, until (hopefully) it became clearer which tool might be the
> better long term choice.

My personal long-term choice will probably not be of the Arch family.
But, better use the best of the family right now.

> One difficulty I see is that (if I understand correctly) baz is not
> backward compatible with tla.  i.e. once you start using baz on your
> archive, only baz will be able to access it.

No, it is backward compatible since you can create an archive in
the tla format if you like (--tla option to init-tree).
One of the goals of bazaar is to always remain compatible with
tla.
However, you can create a baz-specific project as well.

> By the way, did you see the response to my question on g-a-u?

Yes, I did. It was informative.

> Apparently the situation I was concerned about is not considered
> unusual, but tla's star-merge is a *very* specific algorithm, and is
> not designed to cross tag boundaries.  In such a case, you should just
> use --reference.  (I also (re-)read that tla's star-merge also won't
> work right in the case of cherry-picking or if we both star-merge and
> commit from each other at the "same time").  Anyway, I'm quite glad to
> finally understand the issue.

Me too.

> So if we did want to continue with tla, our normal process would be to
> just star merge back and forth, and either tag off each other's new
> branches, or use star-merge --reference if we created the new branches
> independently.

Exactly.

> With respect to baz, do you have a good feeling for the state of
> affairs between tla and baz?  Is baz use very widespread (relative to
> tla use)?  I'm not necessarily opposed to switching to baz, but I do
> wish I understood the state of affairs and the likely futures of the
> two tools a bit better.

I think we are free to use the tool we like the most, independently.
I'll personaly use the simplest.

Cheers,

-- 
Jérôme Marant