TopGit: Is there still a need for a long-lived build branch?

[Frédéric Brière]

Hiya everybody,

I've recently converted my opencbm[1] package to TopGit, adopting a
workflow similar to that suggested by Martin.  The main difference is
that instead of maintaining a separate long-lived build branch, I'm
exporting all patches directly on master.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't see the point in having a dedicated
long-lived[2] build branch separate from master anymore.  It certainly
made a lot of sense before TopGit, when all topic branches were merged
into the (messy) integration branch.  But now, the topic branches are
cleanly exported into debian/patches.

Can someone point out an advantage in having a build branch, or a
drawback in not having one?  The only thing I can think of is that after
running tg-cleanexport, all debian/* topic branches (which are based on
master) will automatically be marked as requiring an update.  I don't
really mind, since they're bound to fall behind anyway.  (I'll be damned
if I update them on every single master commit.)


 [1] <http://git.debian.org/?p=collab-maint/opencbm.git>
 [2] Of course, this discussion does not apply to throwaway branches.


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