On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 07:22:19PM -0700, Eliot Miranda wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 9:09 AM, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > So, the value of branch-tag seems really really
> > low -- practically non-existent.  Please enlighten me, what use-case
> > do branches save the day and pay for their forever-cost?
> >
> 
> I have to say they're hugely valuable.  They've allowed me to develop Cog
> (in VMMaker.oscog).  They provide me a way of placing branched versions of
> Kernel, Collections and System alongside their trunk siblings.

I agree. This has been very important in the VMMaker repository. The MC history
shows the history of the branch for any given MCZ, and the branch tags give a
recognisable indication of which branch a given MCZ belongs to.

Indeed, I cannot think of a single case in which someone has accidentally stomped
on someone else's work in the VMMaker repository.

So I consider the branch-tags to be useful and very important.

> 
> If there is still a problem it is that (IIRC) I can't yet use the tools to
> compare a branched package with an unbranched package.  The diff tools say
> that everything's changed (I think).  Am I right?

No, the diff tools are telling you the truth. Sorry ;-)

I quite frequently browse the diffs of the VMMaker.oscog branch from an image
that is updated to the VMMaker branch. There are a lot of differences, but
the tools show them accurately. This is important and useful for comparing
and merging code from two branches.

I would say that branching works well and the tools are adequate.

Dave