Re: CC Mode and electric-pair "problem".

[João Távora]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> From: João Távora <address@hidden>
>> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden
>> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2018 00:49:17 +0100
>> 
>> > But putting the problematic code on a branch reduces the incentive
>> > even more, doesn't it?
>> 
>> I don't follow.
>
> Code on a branch gets less testing by others, and therefore less
> reminders about the failing test.

But surely, the programmer who broke the test, who is the person
technically (and morally) most well suited to fix the problem has the
all the original incentive to merge his work.

For me this is very clear: only merge if there are 0 failing tests (or
rather, if you've increased the number of failing tests by 0).  Perhaps
CVS used to make this impractival, but nowadays git branches make this
very easy.

BTW, why does CONTRIBUTE tell us to "make check" at all?

>> I would answer "no", assuming the person developing the
>> temporarily misbehaving code is motivated to do it in the first place.
>> Develop and break things at will in a branch, merge them to master when
>> they're clean.  No?
> If the code is used, its breakage on a branch hurts like it does on
> master.

Not at all, no, it hurts only the people interested in trying out the
feature.  On master it hurts everyone, including Hydra's continuous
integration, for example, which is the issue at hand.  But also other
automated things like automated bug bisections etc...

> If it's unused, then what is it doing in the repository?

To save it.  To show it to others for comments.  This seems rather
obvious to me, so perhaps we are misunderstanding each other.  I'm also
pretty sure I've seen branches prescribed in this list for unstable
features.