Re: Projects within projects

[Bill Lear <rael@zopyra.com>]

On Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 14:40:36 (-0400) Nick Colgan writes:
>I'm currently working on a project made up of parts that could each be
>considered a project in itself. I plan on using redmine or trac to
>manage the project. Now I'm trying to figure out how to manage the
>repo(s) for the project.
>
>These are the current options I have in mind:
>
>1. Create a separate repository for each sub-project and manage each
>separately in redmine (separate bug tracker, wiki, etc.)
>
>2. Create a single repository with a subdirectory for each sub-project.
>
>3. Use git submodules or subversion externals to combine options 1 and 2
>by creating a separate repo for each sub-project, then creating a master
>repo with subdirectory for each sub-project that imports from their
>respective repositories.
>
>What's the best way to handle this situation? Are git submodules and/or
>svn externals sufficiently capable of dealing with this?

Let me give you an example of #3.  I write a fair amount in C++ and
have written a reasonably sophisticated makefile system to allow me to
create a new directory in a project, put files in it, link in a master
makefile, cd into the directory and type 'make' and have things build
without me having to edit the makefile --- I don't want to write
makefile rules, etc., I want to write C++ (fill in the blank here).
It basically relies on naming conventions, but it suits me perfectly.
If I name a file test_*.cc or t_*.cc, or tc_*.cc, it is a unit test,
if I name it m_*.cc, or main_*.cc, it is a main program.  Library
inter-dependencies are easy to set up in a central way, blah blah blah
--- the details are not terribly important.

In any case, I created a new project to work on some "real-time"
financial trading algorithms.  I did this by creating a new repository
into which I added a src directory, under which were several other
directories of source code.  At the top level of the new repo, I added
a git submodule 'mk' that contains my makefile system.  I then linked
the master makefile to my source directory makefile and was off
compiling easily.

In this case, I do absolutely reuse my makefile system across multiple
projects.  It is 100% orthogonal, and I have so far found it to be
very useful to use git submodules.

I imagine also if you are building software that is 100% orthogonal
that you would like to reuse in many projects, git submobules is the
way to go.

I read the Git Submodule Tutorial on the Git Wiki and found myself
able to use submodules very easily after that.


bill