Subject: Re: [msysGit] Re: Using VC build git

From: Marius Storm-Olsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:13:13 +0200

[Please do *not* do top-posting! Both git and msysgit mailing lists 
use bottom-posting]

Frank Li said the following on 11.08.2009 03:26:
> Thank you take care my patch.
> I can fix all problems.

Good! Many people want to see git build with MSVC, if only to use a 
compiler better at optimizing code on Windows. (And the debugger, of 
course)

> This patch is base on v1.6.4 release.  My working branch is vc_build
> at git://repo.or.cz/tgit.git.

Ok. Dscho wondered why it wasn't a proper fork of the main git.git 
repo, so it *should* really have been
     git://repo.or.cz/git/tgit.git
                      ^^^^ <-- Notice the fork relationship?

It would save some valuable space on the server, show relations, make 
it easier to find, etc.

> That is actually prototype to approve VC can build git.
> The code style is not big problem. I will fix it.

You will experience that for the git community coding style is very 
important (for good reason), so expect many rounds of rewriting your 
patches, until they all shine like diamonds.

> VC build will reuse many msysgit works because msysgit really do many
> work at windows porting.

Sure, but I think it rarely will involve your patches changing the 
code in MinGW at all. Try your outmost to keep your patches separated 
from anything else. If in doubt, please ask us on the msysgit mailing 
list, and we will guide you.

> I think the below is most important problem.
> 
> 1.  Where are vcbuild directory put, is it okay under contrib ?
> 2.  How to handle external library, such as zlib? Can use submodule?

For point 2: If we cannot compile we don't accept it, is the basic 
rule. This means that if you think the people building git with MSVC 
cannot install some dependencies themselves, you need to provide the 
full sources yourself, and make sure that the code compiles without 
changes. So, in this case if would mean to include the sources for 
zlib, and setup the vcproj to compile this code into the executable, 
instead of linking with a precompiled lib.

In this case, however, I think you should rely on the developer 
providing this library themselves, and not add it to the git project. 
The zlib project is ~750KB of code itself..

--
.marius