HEADS-UP: new server-side validation git hook for submodule updates & call-for-help

[Johan Tibell]

Lets give some example workflows for working with submodules. Here's what I
think a raw (i.e. no sync-all) update to base will look like. Please
correct me if I'm wrong.

# Step 1:
cd ~/src/ghc/libraries/base
# edit some_file
git add some_file
git commit -m "Commit to base repo"
git push  # push update to base to git.haskell.org

# Step 2
cd ~/src/ghc
git add libraries/base
git commit -m "Have GHC use the new base version"
git push  # push update to ghc to git.haskell.org

Failure modes include:

 * Forgetting step 2: the ghc repo will point to a slightly older base next
time someone checks it out. Fixing things when in this state: just perform
step 2.
 * Forgetting `git push` in step 1. the ghc repo will point to a base
commit that doesn't exist (except on some developers machine).  Fixing
things when in this state: the developer who forgot to `git push` in step 1
needs to do that.

How could sync-all help us:

 * sync-all push could push all repos, preventing failure case 2 above.

The second interesting workflow involving pulling new changes. This is what
the raw (i.e. no sync-all) workflow will look like:

cd ~/src/ghc
git pull
git submodule update

Failure modes include:

 * Forgetting the `submodule update` and then doing e.g. `git commit -am
"some compile commit"`, reverting the pointer to e.g. base to whatever
older version the developer was using. No commits are lost (nothing changes
in the base repo), but the ghc repo will point to an older commit.

How could sync-all help us:

 * sync-all pull could always run `submodule update`.

The server-side check that Herbert added will make sure that the failure
mode cannot happen, as you explicitly have to say in the commit message
that you updated a submodule.

I think if base was folded into ghc.git very few people would have to deal
with submodules.

On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 11:58 AM, Herbert Valerio Riedel <hvr at gnu.org>wrote:

> Hello *,
>
> I've put in place a new server-side validation hook a few days ago, and
> since nobody seemed to have complained yet, I assume it didn't have any
> adverse effects so far :-)
>
> It will only be triggered when Git submodule references are touched by a
> commit; you can find some preliminary (but incomplete) documentation and
> a sample session triggering validation-failure on purpose at
>
>   https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8251#comment:4
>
> (this will be turned into a proper wiki-page once #8251 is completed;
> there's some minor details wrt some corner cases that still need to be
> looked at)
>
> So, this mostly addresses the server-side requirements for migrating to
> a proper git-submodule set-up for ghc.git;
>
> The next steps, however, include taking care of the client-side work-flow
> for working with a fully "submoduled" ghc.git setup. Personally, I'm
> quite comfortable using direct git commands to manage such a construct,
> but I'm well aware not everyone is (as previous discussions here have
> shown). Also, as my time is rather limited, I'd like to ask interested
> parties to join in and help formulate the future client-side work-flow[1]
> and/or update (or rewrite) the 'sync-all' to provide a seamless or at
> least smooth transition for those GHC devs who want to keep using
> "sync-all" instead of using direct Git commands.
>
>
>  [1]: There's some difference in how tracked upstream packages and
>       GHC-HQ owned sub-repos are to be handled workflow-wise, to avoid
>       ending up with a noisy ghc.git history.
>
>       For instance, having ghc.git with submodules is not the same as
>       having a huge monolithic ghc.git repository with all subrepos
>       embedded. specifically, it might not be sensible to propagate
>       *every* single subrepo-commit as a separate ghc.git submod-ref
>       update, but rather in logical batches (N.B.: using submodules
>       gives the additional ability to git bisect within subrepos instead
>       of having to bisect always only at top-level). This is one example
>       of things to discuss/consider when designing the new work-flow.
>
> Cheers,
>   hvr
> _______________________________________________
> ghc-devs mailing list
> ghc-devs at haskell.org
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/ghc-devs/attachments/20140318/a00544e8/attachment.html>