[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] Message translation

[Diego Biurrun]

On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 06:16:22PM +0100, Ötvös Attila wrote:
> hétfő 04 december 2006 11:23 dátummal Diego Biurrun ezt írta:
> Hi Diego Biurrun!
> 
> > Why are you sending this tarball?  
> "9. [...] Do not compress your patch unless it is larger than 80k or if
>  you know that your mailer messes up (reformats) text attachments."
> The patch size ~112k.

I did not speak against *compressing* the patch, but creating a tarball
is wrong.

> > Why not a single patch?  
> I remember somebody wrote me that I cut the patch becouse all-in-one
> it can difficulty be read.
> 
> > You just seem to have cut your patch apart directory by
> > directory.  This is senseless and greatly reduces your chances of
> > getting somebody to review and maybe test your patches.
>  
> Torinthiel wrote:
> "Splitting patches is good. Oversplitting is bad."
> 
> So I grouped the patch as directories.
> 
> I get balled up :(. 
> How shall I proceed to be right my patch?

Proceed by idea, not by some arbitrary criterion like directory.

Think of it this way: A patch should be as small as possible, but still
make sense on its own. If I read one of your patches without the others
I will not understand what you are trying to do, If I apply one without
the others, the code will not compile anymore.

Look at this translation patch, applying it is a lot of work.  I have to

- save and unpack the tarball
- copy some files into place
- apply patch 1 through x

What I want is a patch that I can directly apply with

  patch --dry-run -p0 -i /path/to/patch

If it takes me more than this step, then you are doing something wrong,
i.e. your patch is split when it should have been one piece.

So how can you ever split patches?  Try to separate changes that are
logically different things.  For example if you rename a variable or if
you add some comments or if you fix some unrelated bug, then all of
these changes can (and should) go in patches of their own.

If you send multiple patches, compress them individually, don't put them
in a tarball.  Even better, send each patch in a mail of its own, it's
much easier to track what was applied this way.

I hope this helps you understand the process.  If not, keep asking.

A question: Do you have (much) previous experience with revision control
systems?  How have you worked so far?

Diego