Re: Best practice for customization to allow persistance between versions?

[Jeff Kowalczyk <..hidden..>]

woodvorg wrote:
>> Check it all out using git, branch it and make your edits to your hearts
>> content...
>> 
>> ...all the cool cats are using git these days... ;-)
> 
> Now that's a much better idea! So when a new version comes out, I check it
> out and just merge the new release branch with my branch? Are there any
> guidelines I should follow to avoid problems in merging? E.g. suppose I
> add a button, and the new release adds a button in the same place... I'm
> unsure of how merge would handle this.

Well, it wouldn't be as simple as an automated merge... If only.

The good news is that this (customizing, merging local
customization changes with upstream changes) will get progressively
easier and better as the code passes from major refactorying stage to
incremental improvement stage.

For example, the UI templating is completely different in trunk (a.k.a
1.3), so customizations to branches/1.2 wouldn't really apply there.

UI Customizations to trunk (eventually branches/1.3) probably would apply
to 1.4 quite well, though.

And git (or bzr) are the tool to use for this, it's true. They let you
make a convenient branch for each distinct customization,  so you can
replay your changes against upstream selectively, or automatically if the
diff cleanly applies.

Jeff