[cvsnt] Branching/Tagging Best Practices

[Andreas Tscharner]

Ryan Parlee wrote:
> Can someone please review my current tagging/branching methodology and make 
> sure I'm doing this right:
> 
> ## Rule 1:  Do all new (i.e. unstable) work on HEAD
> 
> ## Rule 2: Do formal bug fixing on a branch:
> 
> ## Rule 3: Once formal testing period is complete, tag the TEST branch using 
> a "stable" release number and release to clients:
> 

As Arthur has already said: Your best parctise depends on your workflow. 
Here is how what we do:

We are about 13 developers working on one product. We commit all new 
stuff to HEAD. At some point, when we are getting closer to the release 
and one part of the team starts working on stuff that gets to the next 
(not the coming) release, we make a branch for the release, e.g. the new 
stuff for the next release still goes to HEAD, the bugfixes for the 
coming release go to the branch _AND_ to the HEAD (merge). This branch 
is also used after the release for our service packs and it's also the 
same policy: Bugfixes for the service pack go the the branch and to the 
HEAD.
We used to tag every installable release (also internal ones), but this 
might change in the future as it turned out that we get way to many tags 
and most of them are never used again, so I think we're going to tag 
releases that gets out, e.g. betas.

Long story short: New stuff to HEAD, for every release a branch. Tags 
for external releases.

Best regards
	Andreas
-- 
Andreas Tscharner                                   <andy at vis.ethz.ch>
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"Intruder on level one. All Aliens please proceed to level one."
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