[Buildbot-devel] Discussion on source steps

[Dustin J. Mitchell]

On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Pradeepkumar Gayam <in3xes at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does it make sense? Any comments?

This makes great sense.  However, I'm still not convinced as to why
these two are not just two different ways of implementing about the
same thing:

1. Delete everything, that is whole directory
3. Partial deletion.

Those both seem like "clobber" to me.  1 probably isn't very
efficient, but is always effective.  3 may miss some files or have
VC-specific bugs (e.g., replacing a directory with a file), but is
probably faster.  In either case, the compile starts "from scratch".

To be clear, I'm not saying that these are *the same* - I'm just
saying that from a high level, they are both forms of "clobber", and
that I think the user's first choice should be "clobber or
incremental", and then once that's working the user can decide to
optimize or avoid bugs by saying *how* to clobber (delete whole
directory, or partial deletion).

I'm happy to be convinced on this matter, or even to be told to quiet
down and do what Buildbot's users want, but neither has happened yet.
Maybe I'm being thick, and someone needs to explain it to me in small
words :)

Dustin