Re: [Quilt-dev] misc. questions

[Josh Boyer]

On Fri, 2006-01-13 at 22:18 +1100, John Vandenberg wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a number of questions and suggestions for 0.44 that I have
> throw together; feel free to answer a few at a time and come back to
> others.

My $0.02.

> 
> 1. should patches for review contain quilt.changes updates?  My
> initial impression is that this would be a good idea, as the contents
> of this file are part of the published package; but, it would hinder
> re-ordering patches.  perhaps this can be avoided by adding a script
> that generates a quilt.changes update from the patch header, to be
> used prior to commit.

Nah.  Like you said, it's just adds overhead.  And the person that
submits the patch isn't necessarily the person that commits it.  I think
the committer should add the text to quilt.changes.

> 2. should the patch header be used for the cvs commit message?

I would think so.

> 3. should I start a Contributions FAQ file?  if so, in doc/ or the
> base directory?

Can you elaborate on what this would be used for?  Like a "HOWTO
contribute"?  Or more of a "these people have contributed"?

> 4. I often add features to quilt because I need to use them then and
> there, and then months later on forget what additional patches I have
> installed on that box.  Timestamps and version numbers are useless;
> the only way I can deduce what it can do is to know the list of
> patches that were applied.  does this sound like a reasonable addition
> to development versions of quilt?

Need more info.  If you've used quilt to patch your local copy of quilt,
aren't the changes in your patches directory?

> 5. I also forget where I was up to with a workpit, and come back to it
> wondering whether if I need to do a fork/refresh and diff the two
> patches. I would like to add a status.in to tell me what the current
> state of play is.  My thoughts were that it should display:
> 
> Patch: $(quilt top)
> Status: (up-to-date|stale|missing)
> 
> $(quilt header)
> 
> The missing option would appear whenever there are changes against
> .pc, but no saved patch.

A quilt status command might be cool.  I could see myself using it at
least.

> 6. I would like to add a shell.in, that opens a shell with patchfns
> loaded, so I can trial certain operations that doesn't warrant
> cracking open the source and adding a feature.  However, this command
> could produce dire consequences in the wrong hands; is it ok to
> install this?  should it issue a strong warning to the user?

Erm, not sure if this should be in quilt itself.  Starting a shell and
sourcing patchfns shouldn't be that hard... or maybe I'm missing
something?

> 7. Is it ok if I start moving the autoconf tests to separate files
> into m4, and submit them to the ac-macro archive.
> 
> http://autoconf-archive.cryp.to/

Are you looking to do that and push the resulting stuff back into quilt?
If so, I have no idea.  But even if you aren't, quilt is licensed under
the GPL so I don't see anything stopping you.

josh