Re: Google Summer of Code 2009: GIT

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 6:13 AM, Johannes Schindelin
[off-list ref] wrote:

Hi,

On Wed, 18 Mar 2009, david@lang.hm wrote:

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On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

quoted

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009, saurabh gupta wrote:

quoted

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 1:29 AM,  [off-list ref] wrote:

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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009, saurabh gupta wrote:

it may be just doing an XML merge driver is a summer's worth of
work, or it may be that it's not really enough and you should try
to do another one or two.

it also may be that there is a lot of overlap between different
merge drivers, and once you have the XML driver the others become
fairly trivial to do. (I'm thinking the config file examples I
posted earlier in the thread)

with the options given to the user, one can handle the config files
also where order doesn't matter and also the whitespaces problem can
also be handled in the similar way.

In my humble opinion, we should focus on the data types we want to be
able to support at the end of the summer first.

For example, if we decide that OOXML is a must (as it is a proper
standard, and many people will benefit from it), we will most likely
end up in having to write a merge _driver_ (to handle those .zip
files), _and_ a merge _helper_, although we can avoid writing our own
GUI, as we can create an OOXML that has its own version of conflict
markers.

do you mean OOXML (the microsoft format) or ODF (the open office
format)?

Oops.

EOVERLOAD

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If we decide that SVG is something we want to support by the end of
the summer, then we can probably avoid writing a merge _driver_, as
plain text is handled reasonably well in Git.  OTOH it could turn out
that there are _real_ conflicts in overlapping tag ids, and it would
still be easier to write a merge driver, too.

IOW the details are not as important as

- knowing what data types we want to support _at the least_, and what
  data types we keep for the free skate,

- a clear picture of the user interface we want to be able to provide,

- a timeline (weekly milestones should be fine, I guess) what should
  be achieved when, and

- being flexible in how to support that (IOW if a merge driver appears
  unnecessary first, but necessary later, we should be able to fit
  that into both the design and the timeline).

it's up to the student, but I suspect that the best approach would be to
start with defining a merge driver to handle XML (with a minimum set of
capabilities, and additional optional ones), and go from there.

Well, the thing is: if the student decides to have a go at an XML driver
first and foremost, then I'll just flatly refuse to mentor that.  Because
I sincerely believe that this project is best designed from top to bottom,
not the other way round.

After all, the project is based on a user's request, not just a
playthingie for an XML enthusiast (if such a thing exists).

I do agree with you that unless an end user get to see the conflict
result in an appropriate manner, there is no use of having an xml
merger. But, once we decide as what will be the end file type which we
will aim this summer, we can then start working whether its about
making a GUI first, or creating a merge driver first.

Ciao,
Dscho

-- 
Saurabh Gupta
Senior,
NSIT,New Delhi, India