[Rock-dev] Flavours, freezes, updates

[Steffen Planthaber]

Hi,

I'm against development in pinned commits for all packages, getting 
bugfixes then requires attention on the developer side, monitoring all 
the packages for significant updates.

For "user" workflow, increasing the usability of snapshots is, I think, 
the better option.

As Sylvain mentioned in a side note, some people (including me) already 
had a script to place a snapshot into a git repo to keep track of 
snapshot versions, it's like tagging a whole checkout.

I just discussed with some colleagues of the project using the script 
and we came up with following proposal:

1. The buildconf (aka: autoproj folder) gets a new branch "snapshots"
2. autoproj snapshot behavior changes to commit (and push?) new 
snapshots to that branch and also changing the bootstrap.sh included 
there to bootstrap only this snapshot
3. Getting the snapshot branch is possible by downloading the 
bootstrap.sh from the desired snapshot (commit of the snapshot branch) 
which creates a completely new bootstrap containing the versions of the 
snapshot.

Getting a specific snapshot by a new bootstrap is not that bad as it 
sounds. Pinned commits require the repo to be deleted and checked out 
again anyways.

As far I understood git, checking out a specific commit of the buildconf 
(done by the bootstrap.sh of the snapshot), creates a detached head in 
the local repository, so it won't be updated, correct?. So the 
bootstrapped snapshot won't be updated, even if someone calls "autoproj 
update"

This way, several checkouts for different demo states can be 
automatically available and can be started "on the fly" without 
recompiling. As they have been bootstrapped before and can't be updated

Another idea was to give "autoproj update" additional parameters:
autoproj update snapshot -> get the head of snapshots branch
autoproj update 97f5e016b41a5b657a746feb4a7779e55c68e156 -> get specific 
snapshot
But that would require autoproj to handle the rollback (delete and 
freshly check out the specific commit) automatically


Best,
Steffen




-- 
  Steffen Planthaber
  Weltraumrobotik

  Besuchsadresse der Nebengeschäftstelle:
  DFKI GmbH
  Robotics Innovation Center
  Robert-Hooke-Straße 5
  28359 Bremen, Germany

  Postadresse der Hauptgeschäftsstelle Standort Bremen:
  DFKI GmbH
  Robotics Innovation Center
  Robert-Hooke-Straße 1
  28359 Bremen, Germany

  Tel.:     +49 421 178 45-4125
  Zentrale: +49 421 178 45-0
  Fax:      +49 421 178 45-4150 (Faxe bitte namentlich kennzeichnen)
  E-Mail:   Steffen.Planthaber at dfki.de

  Weitere Informationen: http://www.dfki.de/robotik
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
  Firmensitz: Trippstadter Straße 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern
  Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster
  (Vorsitzender) Dr. Walter Olthoff
  Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes
  Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
  Sitz der Gesellschaft: Kaiserslautern (HRB 2313)
  USt-Id.Nr.:    DE 148646973
  Steuernummer:  19/673/0060/3
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------