[p4] A few questions about perforce and a specific branching strategy

[Robert Cowham]

> My client has decided on the following branching strategy.
> 
> Two branches:
> main     - ongoing development
> release - release branch for customers.
> 
> 1) Once a week they will merge the contents of main to 
> release, overwriting all files on release.
> 2) They will stabilize the code in the release branch, and 
> then label and release to customer.
> 3) The will then merge put a label on release, and merge all 
> the changes down to main.
> 4) Repeat
> 
> Note that the merge down to main will likely be happening 
> throughout the week, but a final merge down will happen 
> before the merge the contents of main up into release 
> overwriting all the contents of release.
> 
> They are concerned about two things:
> 1) The impact on the size of perforce database of the above strategy

What's the size of their DB now? Roughly how many files are we talking
about? How many people using Perforce?

(I really don't think there will be a problem, but let's get a rough handle
on size)

> 2) How well will perforce handle the merging up and down.

Well!

> 3) Any specific gotchas to watch out for and/or specific 
> command usage to achieve the above.

Have they read Practical Perforce? Lots of good stuff in there.

Note also Laura's recent paper on 2006.1 merge algorithm at recent European
conference.

> I've discussed with them the wisdom of the above strategy and 
> they will not be deterred, so lets not discuss that.

So what would you prefer?

Robert