On Tue, Dec 13, 2022 at 12:03 PM Tim Düsterhus <t...@bastelstu.be> wrote:
> One benefit of removing those branches would be, that usability of
> GitHub's branch selector improves, specifically the branch selector when
> creating a new PR.
>

Maybe this is my CLI privilege talking, but who's using pulldowns to select
PR branches?  Sepcifically, IME we tend to get PRs against the `master`
branch.

All that aside, I do agree that the dropdown's contents can be daunting.
It's a big list. But:

1/ We're unlikely to get rid of the release branches 100%.  The current RC
cycles have branches for their release so that we can add revisions onto
the RC and get a stable final.  So at minimum, there's going to be a
release branch in place for each active release on 16 out of 28 days
(slightly more than 50% of the time).  Sure, that's just a couple of
version specific branches instead of hundreds, and that point is well
taken, but my counterpoint is that we will have working branches.

2/ I'm not convinced this is a confusing scheme.  While php-src doesn't
follow perfect semver, we certainly have something recognizable to the
broader OSS development community, and if you see PHP-8.0 PHP-8.0.0
PHP-8.0.1 etc... I think a programmer is going to being able to sus out the
meaning of these branches.  Even if they don't, the review process will
easily be able to set them straight.  TL;DR We can expect a reasonable
amount of sense on the part of anyone who has any reason to be poking
around branches.

Given #2, I don't see a significant benefit, given #1 I see that benefit
being naturally mitigated, and I don't see removing data from our repo as
being valuable.

Just my personal feeling on the matter, don't let me discourage you from
bringing this to an RFC and holding a vote.

-Sara

Reply via email to