From: "Junio C Hamano" <gits...@pobox.com>
"Philip Oakley" <philipoak...@iee.org> writes:
+Preparation
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Cloning from **PUBLISH**, which is a fork of **UPSTREAM** or an empty
+repository.
I agree here. To clone the upstream, to which you have no push access (by
definition), would leave the config badly mis-set for the basic user.
It's
better for the user to clone their publish fork (to which they have both
read and write access).
I do not think I agree.
If you apriori know that you do want to hack on a project's code, then
forking at GitHub first and then cloning the copy would be OK.
You've clipped my other point:
- One issue may be the different expectations of how the fork is
- created (it's only one click on the GitHub..)
The fork creation issue is surely an essential part of triangular workflow -
a fork isn't required for a patch workflow. Git uses patch flow, while
Git-for-Windows makes use of (GitHub's) Pull Requests.
Most projects will be using some form of hosting service to provide their
public publish repo, and often allow no public pushes. It's the upstream
that choses the hosting service, which decides the users choices.
But I doubt that would be a common set-up, unless you are focusing
only on school-like setting where you are told by your instructor to
"make changes to this public project, and show the result in your
fork". In real life you cannot tell if the project is worth your
time modifying until you see it first, can you?
At this point there are multiple choices depending how the hosting and
project is set up. It may already be packaged. It may allow full web
browsing of the code. It probably has tar/zip download of the latest master.
Some popular sites offer free hosting and forking, which leads to the the
suggested method.
I suspect that the majority of local clones start from something
like "I want to build and use from the tip", "I want to use a module
that does X, and there are three candidates, so let's clone them all
to evaluate", etc. You do not bother "forking at GitHub" but just
clone from the upstream for these clones.
Any stat's for this. I'd be far more likely to fork first, giving me a
backup vault, and clone that, especially since being bitten (historically)
by the need to juggle the configs after the fact..
After you build it and try things out, you may start making local
changes, and you may even record your changes as local commits. You
play with your local clone of the upstream. After doing so, you may
find that some of the projects do not fit your needs, but for some
others, you would find that it is worth your time and effort to
upstream your changes and/or keep working further on the project.
In all these cases there is the 'backup' copy question for any of those
mods, which tends to mean the user will have a fork acting as a home vault.
And at that point, you would create a publishing place, push into
it, and tell others "Hey I did this interesting thing!". That
"creat a publishing place" step could be just a one click at GitHub.
Isn't that how you work with other people's projects? Or do you
always modify every project you fetch from the outside world?, Do
you always fork first, just in case you *might* change and you
*might* have to have a place to push your changes out?
As noted above, yes, if I'm interested enough to go for the clone, then mods
are a real posibility and I'd typically use the hosting service as a
vault/triangle.
If you tell novices "You fork first and then clone your fork", and
in the ideal (to you) case they will follow that advice to the
letter and they will end up with forks of all projects they will
ever look at, in many of which they make no local commit.
What is more likely to happen is that they will first ignore you and
start from a local clone of the upstream, and then find this
document that says "triangular workflow requires you to fork first,
clone that fork and work in it". Because they would have to fork
first and make another clone, this time a clone of the fork, in
order to follow the instruction of this document, they oblige,
ending up with two clones. More importantly, this makes the local
clone of the upstream they made earlier and the changes they made in
that clone appear useless. They need to be told how to transplant
the work done in the clone to the newly created clone of the fork,
in order to publish them.
If your instruction begins with "You clone from upstream as usual
(i.e. just like when you make a "read-only" clone without any
intention to make changes or push changes out), and add a publish
place if/when it becomes necessary", the problem described in the
previous paragraph goes away, no?
Yes, the document does need to cover both routes, which should be the main
outcome of the discussion.
But I still think that, by definition of the triangular workflow (and the
reader will be here because they are expecting to be part of that flow),
that the fork first (if available), is to my mind, the easiest was to get
started. And if it's not, i.e. they clone upstream first, create a publish
server/host/repo, push to that, and adjust all the configs for that, then
that should also be described. It all depends on the phantom 'git fork
<upstream> <publish>` command.
E.g.
* Establishing a triangular workflow using upstream's host fork method.
You do not have a local clone of upstream yet and hope to work on the
project with a triangular flow. /describe the easiest steps from here/
* Converting a local repo to a triangular workflow.
You already have a local clone of the upstream, but no public repo that the
maintainer can pull from. /describe the necessary steps to set up a fork,
and appropriate config settings/
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