[ANNOUNCE] new extension: localbranch

[Benoit Boissinot]

On 8/26/07, Guido Ostkamp <hg at ostkamp.fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Hi Brendan,
>
> On Sat, 25 Aug 2007, Brendan Cully wrote:
> > I've just written a new extension called "localbranch", documented
> > briefly here:
> >
> > http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/LocalbranchExtension
> >
> > Local branches are clones which live inside a repository. That is, they
> > share a working directory. Plain old clones are nice, but the overhead
> > of creating a new working directory can be a drag, and you may have
> > external tools built to use the path to your main repository, which
> > would have to be reconfigured to use a new clone. Local branches avoid
> > these problems.
>
> can you please let us know what the differences between your "localbranch"
> and the regular "branch" inside a repo would be?
>
> I mean with
>
> $ hg branch mybranch
> $ hg up -C mybranch
>
> you can already use a branch inside a repo without need to clone a working
> directory at a different location, isn't it?
>
a branch is part of the history (the branch name is recorded in the
changelog) and so they are immutable. localbranches are really like
clones inside a repo, this is usually what people expect from branches
(not creating a new working copy when you want to work on something
else).
I would say that a branch (aka named branch) is for long lived
branches that have a meaning (like -devel / -stable), whereas
localbranch are for short lived development for people who don't like
to clone.

regards,

Benoit