annotate docs/evolve-good-practice.rst @ 6935:954d7ea5cd67 stable tip

stack: when stack base is obsolete, pick any successor, even if at random

There are situations when s0 is obsolete and we also cannot pick just one
successor for it to use in stack. In such a case, let's pick the "latest"
successor from the first set.

We're assuming that obsutil.successorssets() returns data in the same order (it
should, since it makes sure to sort data internally). Keeping that in mind,
while the successor picked for s0 by this code is not based on any sort of
sophisticated logic, it should nonetheless be the same every time.

This patch is probably not going to completely break anything that was
previously working fine, because the previous behavior was to just abort with
an exception.

.. Copyright 2011 Pierre-Yves David <[e-mail]>
..                Logilab SA        <[e-mail]>

-----------------------------------------
Good practice for (early) users of evolve
-----------------------------------------

Avoid unstability
-----------------

The less unstability you have the less you need to resolve.

Evolve is not yet able to detect and solve every situation. And your mind is
not ready neither.

Branch as much as possible
--------------------------

This is not MQ; you are not constrained to linear history.

Making a branch per independent branch will help you avoid unstability
and conflict.

Rewrite your changes only
-------------------------

There is no descent conflict detection and handling right now.
Rewriting other people's changesets guarantees that you will get
conflicts. Communicate with your fellow developers before trying to
touch other people's work (which is a good practice in any case).

Using multiple branches will help you to achieve this goal.

Prefer pushing unstability to touching other people changesets
--------------------------------------------------------------


If you have children changesets from other people that you don't really care
about, prefer not altering them to risking a conflict by stabilizing them.


Do not get too confident
------------------------

This is an experimental extension and a complex concept. This is beautiful,
powerful and robust on paper, but the tool and your mind may not be prepared for
all situations yet.