[cfe-dev] [llvm-dev] [Github] RFC: linear history vs merge commits

[David Greene via cfe-dev]

<paul.robinson at sony.com> writes:

> Systems that I've seen will funnel all submitted PRs into a single queue
> which *does* guarantee that the trial builds are against HEAD and there
> are no "later commits" that can screw it up. If the trial build passes,
> the PR goes in and becomes the new HEAD.

The downside of a system like this is that when changes are going in
rapidly, the queue grows very large and it takes forever to get your
change merged.  PR builds are serialized and if a "build" means "make
sure it builds on all the Buildbots" then it takes a very long time
indeed.

There are ways to parallelize builds by speculating that PRs will build
cleanly but it gets pretty complicated quickly.

> But this would be a radical redesign of the LLVM bot system, and would
> have to wait until we're done with the GitHub migration and can spend
> a couple of years debating the use of PRs. :-)

Heh.  Fully guaranteeing buildability of a branch is not a trivial task
and will take a LOT of thought and discussion.

                              -David