Re: Should 'old-branches' and 'other-branches' be kept?

[Eric S. Raymond]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>:
> http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/emacs/README says:
> 
>    [...]
>    `old-branches' Directory of branches that have been merged into trunk 
> already.
>    `other-branches' Directory of various other branches.
>    [...]
> 
> I don't see any point in getting rid of them, tho.

As requested by Andreas Schwab, I'm trying to do lifetime analysis on
the =-prefixed attic files from RCS so they can be renamed and have
correct deletion points.  There are plenty of cases of the same file existing 
under both both =-prefixed and non-prefixed names; when that happens, I
have to do a lot of hand-work to figure out what's actually going on,

The dead branches complicate this process a *lot*, esoecially the part
where I back up through the history looking for a ChangeLog entry marking
the actual deletion point.  I just figured out that the reason I've only
found two real deletion points in sixteen tries is because the dead
branches are getting in the way.

This makes me want to chop them all off.
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>