Import layout of Quilt v3 packages

[James Westby]

On Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:22:45 -0600, John Arbash Meinel <john at arbash-meinel.com> wrote:
> Now that I've described the state as I understand it, here are some
> questions.
> 
> 1) As I understand it, most people are in favor of *not* versioning the
>    .pc directory. So that when you do "bzr branch lp:ubuntu/foo" you'll
>    get a tree with:
>      a) debian/patches/* still intact
>      b) Those patches applied to the working tree
>      c) no .pc directory

Well, I'm in favour of *not* versioning the .pc directory, however I
don't immediately follow to your a, b and c.

I am convinced that "check out and immediately start hacking" is a
property that we want.

> 2) Doesn't that mean that you have to rebuild the .pc directory right
>    after you get the checkout? Wouldn't it be easier to get it from the
>    beginning? Or is it just introducing an extra place to get conflicts
>    when trying to merge.

Yes, you would have to rebuild the .pc directory right after the
checkout. Yes it would be easier to get it right from the beginning.

>    That said, if you did end up merging 2 branches that didn't have .pc
>    directories, how would you get the .pc directory rebuilt? (Since
>    presumably the patch series need to be combined in some way, and
>    modifications to the source tree also need to be replicated into the
>    patches themselves.)

There is a similar problem with the current state of affairs, where
merging two branches attempts to merge everything in .pc and doesn't
leave you in a very good state.

> All this may change again if we switch the importer to use looms, since
> then you can do stuff like merge the patches one-by-one up the stack
> until you get to the top, without having to deal with conflicts in .diff
> format.

Exactly.

I think that there may be a middle ground, if we can separate
storage from presentation to the user. I don't know how that would work
without some pretty major changes though. Maybe pursuing looms is the
correct way to go.

Thanks,

James