Version control systems

[Malcolm Wallace]

Manuel wrote:

>> | It is worth pointing out that I *never* validate against ghc head  
>> when
>> | I commit to the core libraries.

> Sorry, but I think the only reason its halfway acceptable is that  
> Malcolm didn't break the GHC build yet.  If he does, I'll be  
> screaming as loudly as for anybody else.

Whilst I'm in no way saying that a working nhc98 head is anything like  
as important as a working ghc head, are you saying that I should  
scream louder everytime someone breaks nhc98 too?  It is happening  
several times a week at the moment.  It can be jolly frustrating when  
I have other things I could be doing.  But I accept that it is simply  
the price to pay for keeping up-to-date with the libraries everyone  
else is using.  Ghc has no monopoly on the "core" libraries.  They are  
a shared resource.

> to be honest, I don't think its a valid reason for us to go to the  
> trouble of having two vcs for ghc.

Well indeed, I don't want to stand in the way of ghc.  There are far  
more people contributing to it, so their needs have greater weight.   
But I am raising the libraries question, because I think it has an  
impact much more widely than just ghc (or Hugs or nhc98, for that  
matter).

Git may turn out to be sufficiently easy to use that this will all  
seem like a storm in a teacup once the dust has settled.  (I'm not  
filled with confidence by blog postings that say "granted, git is a  
usability disaster zone", and "[you] may find git to be hostile,  
unfriendly and needlessly complex", but those seem to be minority  
opinions.)

Regards,
     Malcolm


Regards,
     Malcolm