1) Jed, what did you do to Barry? =) 2) I am am going to interpret the move from Mercurial to Git as a sign that the End Times are indeed here.
OK, seriously, I am OK with using Git or Mercurial: I think they are actually fairly similar tools and each has pluses and minuses. But what I do want to advocate for is that we please try to to keep some sort of Mercurial access to petsc-dev in place, either by keeping a Mercurial repo around or by maintaining some clear instructions on how this can be done using something like the Hg-Git plugin. My concern is that, while I am a Ph.D. computer scientist, most of the people I write code with are not (they are domain scientists), and the Git learning curve is *steep*. I have a hard enough time getting some of them comfortable with using Mercurial, and I see trying to do the same with Git as a potentially hopeless task. --Richard On 3/11/13 2:05 PM, Barry Smith wrote: > To users of petsc-dev, > > I promised more details on the planned change and why we are making > them. > > The plan is to move petsc-dev over to the git repository system > (remaining on bitbucket.org so no new accounts are needed) with a simple and > slow transition from Mecurial and allowing people to change their workflows > slowly and easily and NOT to drop a totally new system onto everyone at the > same time. Thus on Tuesday we will be moving all the data over to git and > providing access from bitbucket.org with BOTH hg and git, you will not need > to switch over to git on Tuesday and in fact we recommend not switching to > git immediately but continuing to use hg (on the new repository) until we > have the git process documented and can help people with it. On Tuesday we > will be sending out the URL of the new hg repository you should clone from at > that time. > > If you are in the middle of a coding project that you don't want to push > immediately send us petsc-maint at mcs.anl.gov and we'll get things organized > so that you can continue with that in the new repository. > > Schedule: > Tuesday -- delete your current petsc-dev repositories and reclone with > hg using the new URL, use this new repository just like the current one > After Tuesday -- read our documentation on using Git (to be sent out > later) and then eventually switch to accessing petsc-dev via git. > Eventually -- the Mecurial (hg) access to petsc-dev will become read > only. > > Reasons for the change: > > 1) We want to provide a more stable version of petsc-dev. To often petsc-dev > won't compile cleanly when pulled. In our new model this will happen much > less often since code will be well tested before being pushed into the stable > version. > > 2) The petsc-dev repository has gotten overly large due to many large binary > files being accidentally added to the repository, thus it is time to get rid > of those files and that requires a reclone. > > 3) We would like to make the change sets and histories in petsc-dev be more > logically related to particular projects and not just a random bunch of > unrelated changes (as Barry has often done). Our new work flow with git will > help with this. > > 4) Though Mecurial is a user friendly system, git appears to have more > community support and thus is likely to have more capabilities and utilities > developed for it in the future. We will strive to make the use of git with > PETSc as simple as possible. > > I have been hesitant to make this change for fear that working with > petsc-dev would become more cumbersome, more annoying, more bookkeeping > involved, more like a job, and hence less fun. And we know people tend to do > something less if it is less fun. Since we don't want people to do things > with petsc-dev less we will be trying hard to make the new model as close to > the old model as possible and not cumbersome or annoying. As always we > appreciate any feedback on what we are doing wrong and how we could improve > it. > > Barry > > > On Mar 10, 2013, at 10:29 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote: > >> To everyone accessing petsc-dev via Mecurial (hg), >> >> We are reorganizing how we handle the petsc-dev/BuildSystem >> repository. In step one everyone will need to delete all their clones of >> petsc-dev and then reclone them either on Tuesday or soon after. So it would >> be good if anyone who has material close to being ready to push to petsc-dev >> to finish it up and push it before then.** (If you are a user of petsc-dev >> but do not edit any files in petsc-dev you will also need to do the reclone.) >> >> We will send out more warnings reminding you of the change and the >> location of the new URL to clone from. We will also send out a more complete >> message explaining all the planned changes and why we are making them. Aside >> from this first recloning, the changes will not require any immediate change >> in the way you interact with petsc-dev. >> >> >> Barry >> >> ** If you miss the deadline, but have changes that still need to be >> submitted, we can handle that but it will be manual process so we do not >> want too much of that. >> -- Richard Tran Mills, Ph.D. Computational Earth Scientist | Joint Assistant Professor Hydrogeochemical Dynamics Team | EECS and Earth & Planetary Sciences Oak Ridge National Laboratory | University of Tennessee, Knoxville E-mail: rmills at ornl.gov V: 865-241-3198 http://climate.ornl.gov/~rmills
