Re: Next release from master

[Óscar Fuentes]

>> I agree.  Feature branches are annoying from a testing point of view.  It
>> would have to be a very exciting branch before I’d bother to merge it...

You don't need to merge the branch, just do a checkout, build it and
try the feature.

> +1 on adding new features to be tested to the master branch directly.

What does "to be tested" mean here? Does it mean that the feature was
not thoroughly tested by the developer yet? Or is "testing" on the sense
of "let's see if the feature is interesting enough for definitive
inclusion into Emacs but now it is all over the place and removing it
would be a lot of work so it is here to stay"?

I've seen very successful projects that encourage developing features in
the main branch, but those projects have an extensive test suite and a
policy that dictates that any commit that introduces regressions is
fixed or reverted as soon as the regression is observed. Encouraging the
development of intrusive, potentially destabilizing or controversial
features (*) on the master branch of Emacs is a recipe for sinking
quality, hence discouraging people from using the development version,
hence causing the contrary effect of less testing for the whole project.

We have a DVCS. Let's use it for good.

* No problem with features that are mostly independent from the rest of
  the project.