Only people who aren't good at git will think dependent branches are overhead.
The version control system itself doesn't have enough features for collaborative coding. It doesn't have all the discussions and messages exchanged between authors and reviewers. The main task here isn't version control itself but a collaborative social process. The kernel has LKML. The rest of us mostly use GitHub. By making one large PR with distinct commits you force that discussion to be intertwined together. That's why I continue to believe the best way is to make multiple smaller PRs each with one commit (or multiple commits that are squashed upon merge).
> Only people who aren't good at git will think dependent branches are overhead.
[redacted]
You have to create branch names and keep them in synch. with `git rebase --update-refs` constantly. But worst of all: vanilla forge PRs don’t support it. So you have to thread these dependencies manually instead. What magic eliminates this overhead?
I really don't understand you here. Yes you do need to run `git rebase --update-refs` constantly but you want your commits to be meaningful enough to be preserved, you are doing the rebase anyways. If you don't want to type `--update-refs` put it in your .gitconfig. And what do you mean vanilla forge PRs don't support it? If it's GitHub you simply tell your reviewer to look at the commit diff view not the PR diff view.
> Yes you do need to run `git rebase --update-refs` constantly but you want your commits to be meaningful enough to be preserved, you are doing the rebase anyways. If you don't want to type `--update-refs` put it in your .gitconfig.
I tried out that config for a while but it was too much of a sledgehammer in practice. It rewrote things that I didn’t want.
> And what do you mean vanilla forge PRs don't support it?
Hmm. This is what I would call support:
- Push one time and you get the option from the remote to generate X dependent PRs since the remote sees that you have some branch tip and X-1 ancestor branches which are not in `main`... etc.
I at least haven’t heard of this support in GitHub.
What does not rise to that level: having to create X PRs manually and making sure to target each of them individually.
But apparently the Git experts (or simply the ones who do not suck at it) do this with vanilla tooling. I could very well be missing something here.
> If it's GitHub you simply tell your reviewer to look at the commit diff view not the PR diff view.
You mean a five-commit PR could be a one-commit-per-PR by saying to the reviewer “look at the commit diff”? Then I have no trouble with it.
The version control system itself doesn't have enough features for collaborative coding. It doesn't have all the discussions and messages exchanged between authors and reviewers. The main task here isn't version control itself but a collaborative social process. The kernel has LKML. The rest of us mostly use GitHub. By making one large PR with distinct commits you force that discussion to be intertwined together. That's why I continue to believe the best way is to make multiple smaller PRs each with one commit (or multiple commits that are squashed upon merge).