Proposal to revise forest graph and integration practices for JDK 9

[Dalibor Topic]

On 11/26/13 6:40 PM, Andrew wrote:
>> Considering the real benefits of a master forest [1], and the real drawbacks
>> when it's being used with a rapidly changing tree underneath [2], I'd
>> suggest you drop the master forest for JDK 9.
>>
> 
> I'd assumed it was needed for some internal Oracle stuff but if it's not, drop
> it by all means.

Basically, it means release engineering can take the untagged master, go do a build,
and once (or more accurately - if) the build succeeds, tag build X in the master. So in 
theory, you can avoid 'burning up' build numbers for broken builds, because you can
go back, fix the master, and attempt a new build, and then tag that as build X.

Burning up build numbers is kind of bad because bugs can (and typically do) get marked 
as fixed in a given build X, and if there is no actual build X, it quickly becomes very 
confusing to verify if a bug was actually fixed (in build X) or not.
  
For more details on that, see "Other material particular to the JDK project" part of 
https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/general/JBS+Overview .

The alternative is similar to the first paragraph - tag build X on jdk9/dev before the build, 
attempt the build, if it fails, remove that tag again, fix whatever caused the problem, for 
example by anti-delta-ing the offending change [0], re-tag, and repeat until done.

cheers,
dalibor topic

[0] If you don't have a fix committed within, say, 5 minutes, as it's typically going to be 
a case of just a missing hg add, or something simple like that, anti-delta seems like the 
tool of choice in such cases.

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