Version control habits (was: more merging stuff)

Bram Cohen wrote:
> There seem to be three distinct methods of using version control, and
> almost everyone clearly falls into one of the three:
>
> manual merging - all updates are done by manually picking through hunks
(snip)
> maniacal merging - slightly more under control than manual merging, but
> there are always a very large number of branches going on in parallel,
(snip)
> hate merging - uses a minimal number of parallel branches, and sticks to
> the simple commit everything/update everything methodology.
(snip)

Interesting.

Once again, you have reminded me that tools shape processes, and 
processes that worked with one set of tools may be inappropriate with 
another set. I am still in transition to a distributed SCM mindset, and 
am still working to release assumptions that are no longer true.

My preference is absoutely to be a "hate merging" person. But I am also 
a "review every incoming line of code" person.

With a centralized SCM like CVS, that means I absolutely need a 
"preview" tool where I can see what changes will get pulled in, without 
actually making those changes. That's because I can't commit my own work 
until I have sync'd with everyone else's work.

However, with a decentralized SCM, I really don't need preview any more. 
If I have pending work, I can commit it before pulling in changes from 
someone else. At that point, it's ok to pull the changes in, and then 
run diffs to see what got changed.

I suspect that as I shift more toward a decentralized model, I may be 
forced toward the "maniacal merging" camp, although hopefully not too far.

> Codeville has a command to pull other data and then do diffs without
> actually updating, by the way. 

Cool. Unfortunately, codeville lacks a feature that I consider essential 
(plain http hosting). Hopefully eventually that could be added via some 
kind of extension layer.

Kevin