Iceberg and git workflow

Hi Holger, I think that both patterns are currently supported (in beta version), but maybe we do not use exactly the same tools. 

First, Iceberg does not use the concept of "stash". The git stash changes the file in your git working copy (on your file system), while your (modified) code is not there, is in the Pharo image. 

Going deeper into it, we understand git is very powerful but we do not believe that git is the ultimate perfect code versioning tool. We think that there are some git usage patterns that tend to be difficult to understand so we are trying to create a better abstraction on top of that. Also we would like to come up with an abstraction that works not only for git but for other repositories. 

So, we try to support the kind of requirements you are worried about, but maybe not in the same way that the command line tools you are used to. I also have been working with git in languages like Scala, Javascript, Xtend, etc and I was used to the command line tools... so now the task for me is to try to understand: which of all those things I was used to do were really necessary and which of them are just boilerplate I need to do because of my tools are too low level?

Maybe your experience can help us answer that question.

 

a.) If current HEAD is same as origin/master

$ git stash (stash away my not finished changes)
$ vi code.c fix..
$ git commit -a -c "subject

long explanation of fix
reference to bug"
$ git stash apply (and go back to working on my feature)

So, why is this better than having a new image with a clean version of HEAD?

b.) E.g. if I finished n-commits but I am not fully done

For this I would propose a slightly different pattern: 

# store my work
$ git commit -a -m "Work In Progress hack.."

You can commit, ok... but also you could just save the image with your work in progress, no need to create a hacky commit.

 

$ git checkout -b new-feature-branch

# go back to master
$ git checkout master
$ git reset --hard origin/master (to restore)

To avoid reset, I would propose to leave master like that and put the new work in a clean branch, starting on origin/master.

In git-command-line language it would be:

git checkout -b fix origin/master

So you create a new branch for your fix out of origin/master, leaving the original branch untouched.

 

# work on the fix
$ vi code.c fix..
$ git commit -a -c "fix..."

No problems here... just we do not use vi for editing code :)

 

# go back and continue on my fix
$ git checkout new-feature-branch

$ git rebase origin/master
$ git reset HEAD^1
.. continue to work

 Several things here. First, I think that everything is simpler if you just leave your original branch untouched, so you could re-checkout that branch without the need for reset and removing hacky commits. But even more interesting if you agree to have two images one for each task, you just go back to your first image and everything is just like you left it, including open windows and whatever task you were doing. I think that is a beautiful value of Pharo I would not like to loose.

The only thing left would be to incorporate the fix into this image, right now we do not support rebase, you would need to merge... but I understand why one would prefer rebase in this scenario, at some point we will support both options.

So, to sum up. I am not trying to replicate in Pharo the way I used to work in Javascript... I think that would be silly. Instead, we are trying to take the good stuff of git into Pharo, but without loosing all the good stuff of Pharo. 

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Vitor Medina Cruz <[hidden email]> wrote:

My two cents: having different images for branches is a good workaround, but I will have to manually control those images, while git abstracts this a little since I have a way to tell it to stash and bring back work in progress. Depending on the project, I think loading a new image with a fresh HEAD would require a lot of time to bring all dependencies and compile, while just getting changes made at certain point from an image and stash them would be much faster, am I wrong?

Just one comment: the proposal is not to have an image for each branch, you can switch branches using Iceberg. What Iceberg does support not currently is just the "stash" command.

Yet it could be slower to create a clean image with your changes, there are ways to make it faster. Also git stash has its own problems, personally I am not a fun of that feature, and I've seen lots of time people messing with it and loosing changes. Moreover, I do not see that saving a "fake" commit to later delete it as a "best practice", but more as a workaround because you do not have a better tool.

For all this grounds is that we do not see it as a priority, because we think that there are other tools that can replace it (yet we would like to listen to other opinions) .

Yes, I agree on the case of fake commit, I prefer your usage of git. In the case of stash, I prefer Intellij shelve feature, do you know it? I think it helps me organize better than the stash, I use it all the time. 

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Nicolas Passerini <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Vitor Medina Cruz <[hidden email]> wrote:

My two cents: having different images for branches is a good workaround, but I will have to manually control those images, while git abstracts this a little since I have a way to tell it to stash and bring back work in progress. Depending on the project, I think loading a new image with a fresh HEAD would require a lot of time to bring all dependencies and compile, while just getting changes made at certain point from an image and stash them would be much faster, am I wrong?

Just one comment: the proposal is not to have an image for each branch, you can switch branches using Iceberg. What Iceberg does support not currently is just the "stash" command.

Yet it could be slower to create a clean image with your changes, there are ways to make it faster. Also git stash has its own problems, personally I am not a fun of that feature, and I've seen lots of time people messing with it and loosing changes. Moreover, I do not see that saving a "fake" commit to later delete it as a "best practice", but more as a workaround because you do not have a better tool.

For all this grounds is that we do not see it as a priority, because we think that there are other tools that can replace it (yet we would like to listen to other opinions) .

No I do not know it, how does it work?

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Vitor Medina Cruz <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I agree on the case of fake commit, I prefer your usage of git. In the case of stash, I prefer Intellij shelve feature, do you know it? I think it helps me organize better than the stash, I use it all the time. 

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Nicolas Passerini <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Vitor Medina Cruz <[hidden email]> wrote:

My two cents: having different images for branches is a good workaround, but I will have to manually control those images, while git abstracts this a little since I have a way to tell it to stash and bring back work in progress. Depending on the project, I think loading a new image with a fresh HEAD would require a lot of time to bring all dependencies and compile, while just getting changes made at certain point from an image and stash them would be much faster, am I wrong?

Just one comment: the proposal is not to have an image for each branch, you can switch branches using Iceberg. What Iceberg does support not currently is just the "stash" command.

Yet it could be slower to create a clean image with your changes, there are ways to make it faster. Also git stash has its own problems, personally I am not a fun of that feature, and I've seen lots of time people messing with it and loosing changes. Moreover, I do not see that saving a "fake" commit to later delete it as a "best practice", but more as a workaround because you do not have a better tool.

For all this grounds is that we do not see it as a priority, because we think that there are other tools that can replace it (yet we would like to listen to other opinions) .