[Bf-committers] Harmonious collaboration - reverting commit process

[Sergey Sharybin]

Hi,

Currently I do not believe submodules change is important enough to grant a
revertal. Some reasoning:

- It is often harmless
- It is easy to recover from
- It is hard to avoid by mistake (even happens for me when committing from
a non-main PC!)

I do believe the situation with submodules is to be changed, to make it
easier to do the right thing, but this is a separate topic.

---

Some thoughts on the matter. Doing it in this thread because I do not have
a concrete proposal yet to grant a useful conversation. Although,
bringing some points on the table will help to understand the
situation better.

Part of the issue is that we don't use submodules and configuration
correctly. When we did an initial transition from Subversion to Git the
`ignore = all` meant that the submodule is ignored for both DIFF and STAGE
family of Git commands. But! This is how code worked, not how it was
documented. After some time the Git code got fixed to follow documentation.
That's why we now have lots of submodule changes committed.

The current state is very confusing: git status/diff will not show changes
in the submodules, but git add and git commit will make it so changes are
very easy to land to the official repository.

One thing we can/should do is to remove the `ignore = all` setting, so that
it is at least visible what is in the commit.
Maybe add a post-receive check about submodules on the server?

But how to make it so it's easy to commit still? Ask everyone to never
stage submodules? Don't think this is a good solution.
Maybe make an easy-to-install local hook which will do some unstage magic
for the submodules?

Anyway, so for the topic of commit revertal I do not think submodules
change should be reverted simply because our current setup feels messy and
unfriendly.
If someone feels like looking into a solution, I suggest moving this matter
to a separate ML thread, to keep discussions more focused.

Best regards,
- Sergey -
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sergey Sharybin - sergey at blender.org - www.blender.org
Principal Software Engineer, Blender
Buikslotermeerplein 161, 1025 ET Amsterdam, the Netherlands


On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 6:20 PM Howard Trickey via Bf-committers <
bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:

> Speaking of that error -- submodules changed by mistake -- what is the best
> practice to avoid that? My GSoC mentee was asking about that, and I told
> him
> what I do, but it seems clunky and there is probably a better way.
>
> What I do:
> 1) make sure I've used "make update" or something similar to ensure that
> the
> submodules are up to date
> 2) when I "git add" files, I always add explicitly, one by one, only those
> files
> that "git status" shows I've changed. In other
>
> Is there something easier than (2)?
>
> On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 7:46 AM Jeroen Bakker via Bf-committers <
> bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:
>
> > A common reason why I revert commits is that submodules were changed by
> > mistake. Is reverting a good solution? Perhaps worth mentioning.
> >
> > Jeroen
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 12:55 PM Sergey Sharybin via Bf-committers <
> > bf-committers at blender.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Today I continued to update the development process guidelines and
> > policies
> > > on the Wiki. This is based on previous discussions with the other
> > > bf-admins, and I'm working with Dalai on the final text adjustments. So
> > > today we handled the "polemic" topic of reverting commits:
> > > https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Process/Revert_Commit
> > >
> > > Feedback and suggestions are welcome.
> > >
> > > Please note that we do read the feedback you are giving. Currently we
> are
> > > focusing on finishing the first pass of the process update. We will
> then
> > > look into addressing your feedback to make the development process fun
> > and
> > > smooth!
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > - Sergey -
> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Sergey Sharybin - sergey at blender.org - www.blender.org
> > > Principal Software Engineer, Blender
> > > Buikslotermeerplein 161, 1025 ET Amsterdam, the Netherlands
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Bf-committers mailing list
> > > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > > https://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-committers mailing list
> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > https://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> https://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>