[petsc-dev] All petsc-dev users will need to do a reclone of petsc-dev on Tuesday or later

Tue Mar 12 10:18:05 CDT 2013

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Tim Tautges <tautges at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

> Though, with the exception of the Jed/Sean types who know the admin-level
> details of git vs. hg, I'd say going from hg to git is analogous to going
> from cvs to subversion.  For those domain scientists who have trouble even
> doing that, I'd recommend graphical tools like Meld or Tortoise to ease the
> transition (although PETSc's directory structure makes Meld especially
> slow).
>

The only tool for us is http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/,  unless of course
you are not
wise enough to own a Mac :)

It does Hg and Git, and all the branches and subtree etc. Barry, get it now.

   Matt

> - tim
>
>
> On 03/12/2013 09:33 AM, Mark F. Adams wrote:
>
>>
>> On Mar 11, 2013, at 11:08 PM, Richard Tran Mills <rtm at eecs.utk.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  1) Jed, what did you do to Barry? =) 2) I am am going to interpret the
>>> move from Mercurial to Git as a sign that
>>> the End Times are indeed here.
>>>
>>> OK, seriously, I am OK with using Git or Mercurial: I think they are
>>> actually fairly similar tools and each has
>>> pluses and minuses.  But what I do want to advocate for is that we
>>> please try to to keep some sort of Mercurial
>>> access to petsc-dev in place, either by keeping a Mercurial repo around
>>> or by maintaining some clear instructions
>>> on how this can be done using something like the Hg-Git plugin.  My
>>> concern is that, while I am a Ph.D. computer
>>> scientist, most of the people I write code with are not (they are domain
>>> scientists), and the Git learning curve is
>>> *steep*.  I have a hard enough time getting some of them comfortable
>>> with using Mercurial, and I see trying to do
>>> the same with Git as a potentially hopeless task.
>>>
>>>
>> Richard,
>>
>> I'm in a similar situation with the plasma physicists in the EPSI project
>> at PPPL.  They recently put their SVN repo
>> behind the PPPL fire wall (I had to wait two weeks for a fob and take a
>> 45 min. cyber security course) and that is so
>> patently lame that I setup a git repo on bitbucket.org and they have
>> been playing with it.
>>
>> They seem to like it and it looks like we will be moving over to git.
>>  They are going from SVN to git.  A steeper
>> climb.  These are not sophisticated users, as far as this sort of stuff,
>> and they seem to be willing to deal with it.
>> (Some of the more ambitious ones actually really like the branching
>> mechanism is git.)  For the simple workflows that
>> most scientist will use git is not much different from even svn.  And git
>> is pretty good about giving useful
>> messages.
>>
>>
>>  --Richard
>>>
>>> On 3/11/13 2:05 PM, Barry Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>> To users of petsc-dev,
>>>>
>>>> I promised more details on the planned change and why we are making
>>>> them.
>>>>
>>>> The plan is to move petsc-dev over to the git repository system
>>>> (remaining on bitbucket.org so no new accounts
>>>> are needed) with a simple and slow transition from Mecurial and
>>>> allowing people to change their workflows slowly
>>>> and easily and NOT to drop a totally new system onto everyone at the
>>>> same time. Thus on Tuesday we will be moving
>>>> all the data over to git and providing access from bitbucket.org with
>>>> BOTH hg and git, you will not need to
>>>> switch over to git on Tuesday and in fact we recommend not switching to
>>>> git immediately but continuing to use hg
>>>> (on the new repository) until we have the git process documented and
>>>> can help people with it. On Tuesday we will
>>>> be sending out the URL of the new hg repository you should clone from
>>>> at that time.
>>>>
>>>> If you are in the middle of a coding project that you don't want to
>>>> push immediately send us
>>>> petsc-maint at mcs.anl.gov and we'll get things organized so that you can
>>>> continue with that in the new repository.
>>>>
>>>> Schedule: Tuesday -- delete your current petsc-dev repositories and
>>>> reclone with hg using the new URL, use this
>>>> new repository just like the current one After Tuesday -- read our
>>>> documentation on using Git (to be sent out
>>>> later)  and then eventually switch to accessing petsc-dev via git.
>>>> Eventually -- the Mecurial (hg) access to
>>>> petsc-dev will become read only.
>>>>
>>>> Reasons for the change:
>>>>
>>>> 1)  We want to provide a more stable version of petsc-dev. To often
>>>> petsc-dev won't compile cleanly when pulled.
>>>> In our new model this will happen much less often since code will be
>>>> well tested before being pushed into the
>>>> stable version.
>>>>
>>>> 2) The petsc-dev repository has gotten overly large due to many large
>>>> binary files being accidentally added to
>>>> the repository, thus it is time to get rid of those files and that
>>>> requires a reclone.
>>>>
>>>> 3) We would like to make the change sets and histories in petsc-dev be
>>>> more logically related to particular
>>>> projects and not just a random bunch of unrelated changes (as Barry has
>>>> often done). Our new work flow with git
>>>> will help with this.
>>>>
>>>> 4) Though Mecurial is a user friendly system, git appears to have more
>>>> community support and thus is likely to
>>>> have more capabilities and utilities developed for it in the future. We
>>>> will strive to make the use of git with
>>>> PETSc as simple as possible.
>>>>
>>>> I have been hesitant to make this change for fear that working with
>>>> petsc-dev would become more cumbersome, more
>>>> annoying, more bookkeeping involved, more like a job, and hence less
>>>> fun. And we know people tend to do something
>>>> less if it is less fun. Since we don't want people to do things with
>>>> petsc-dev less we will be trying hard to
>>>> make the new model as close to the old model as possible and not
>>>> cumbersome or annoying.  As always we appreciate
>>>> any feedback on what we are doing wrong and how we could improve it.
>>>>
>>>> Barry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mar 10, 2013, at 10:29 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  To everyone accessing petsc-dev via Mecurial (hg),
>>>>>
>>>>> We are reorganizing how we handle the petsc-dev/BuildSystem
>>>>> repository. In step one everyone will need to
>>>>> delete all their clones of petsc-dev and then reclone them either on
>>>>> Tuesday or soon after. So it would be good
>>>>> if anyone who has material close to being ready to push to petsc-dev
>>>>> to finish it up and push it before then.**
>>>>> (If you are a user of petsc-dev but do not edit any files in petsc-dev
>>>>> you will also need to do the reclone.)
>>>>>
>>>>> We will send out more warnings reminding you of the change and the
>>>>> location of the new URL to clone from. We
>>>>> will also send out a more complete message explaining all the planned
>>>>> changes and why we are making them. Aside
>>>>> from this first recloning, the changes will not require any immediate
>>>>> change in the way you interact with
>>>>> petsc-dev.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Barry
>>>>>
>>>>> ** If you miss the deadline, but have changes that still need to be
>>>>> submitted, we can handle that but it will
>>>>> be  manual process so we do not want too much of that.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>> -- Richard Tran Mills, Ph.D. Computational Earth Scientist      | Joint
>>> Assistant Professor Hydrogeochemical
>>> Dynamics Team     | EECS and Earth & Planetary Sciences Oak Ridge
>>> National Laboratory      | University of
>>> Tennessee, Knoxville E-mail: rmills at ornl.gov  V: 865-241-3198
>>> http://climate.ornl.gov/~**rmills <http://climate.ornl.gov/~rmills>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
> --
> ==============================**==============================**====
> "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is
>   steadfast, because he trusts in you."               Isaiah 26:3
>
>              Tim Tautges            Argonne National Laboratory
>          (tautges at mcs.anl.gov)      (telecommuting from UW-Madison)
>  phone (gvoice): (608) 354-1459      1500 Engineering Dr.
>             fax: (608) 263-4499      Madison, WI 53706
>
>

-- 
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their
experiments lead.
-- Norbert Wiener
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