[IPython-dev] About IPython and bzr

[Fernando Perez]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Brian Granger <ellisonbg.net@gmail.com> wrote:
> >  >  One note though: NEVER CHECK IN SYMLINKS. I can't stress this enough.
>  >  >  Windows bzr does not support symlinks (even in a half-assed way like
>  >  >  svn), at least not yet, and I don't know whether such a checkin can be
>  >  >  reverted. So essentially, if there is even one checkin with symlink, I
>  >  >  would need to delete the branch and check it in again from local copy.
>  >
>  >  Could you investigate these alternatives and let us know how well they work?
>  >
>  >  http://bazaar-vcs.org/WindowsSymlinkSupport
>  >  https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/bazaar/2007q1/023801.html
>  >
>  >  I'm asking because while we can live for now without symlinks on
>  >  trunk, it looks like we'll  be using bzr for everything in the future,
>  >  and it's likely we may need to use symlinks for certain things.
>
>  Honest question: I would never have considered even wanting to put
>  symlinks in a repo.  Is there a real need for them inside a repo?

We had the ChangeLog in so that automatic tools could find it by
walking only up the source treee (Emacs does that, I don't know if vi
does it also).  It's certainly not common enough of a need to warrant
losing much sleep over it, and for now we can all just remember NOT to
commit symlinks.  The fact that the discussion exists for bzr is a
good indicator that the need does come up every now and then, but for
us it's not something we should worry too much about.  If we ever do
have a real need for a committed symlink, we'll look into it.

Cheers

f