[Opensim-dev] Q about Git in practice

[diva at metaverseink.com]

I'm new to Git, and I'm still discovering what it can/can't do in the 
context of what I'm doing. Can those of you who know more about it than 
I do give me your impression of this particular situation -- whether Git 
would help here.

Here's the situation: I'm working on the new, CAPS-based HG Inventory 
service. As an inventory service, it's an alternative to the one that we 
currently have (OpenSim.InventoryService.dll and associated 
handlers/modules), it's completely different, designed for different 
clients.

I *could* add this alternative service to the main distribution, but I 
don't think I *should*. This is what we've been striving for: architect 
core so that we can easily develop outside of it. This new service is 
just the right kind of thing to have as an outside project.

Currently, the option is to develop this in forge, or elsewhere, and 
make it available as one or more drop-in dlls to whoever wants to use 
it. This has all the problems that we know about developing in a 
completely separate environment: core interfaces change, and kaboom! 
pain in the neck to keep up. Plus all the pain with Prebuild.xml.

So in my wishful thinking I was wondering if this is what Git was 
designed for. Could I have a Git branch for holding this additional 
code? What exactly does that entail, how does it interact with the 
Master and with everyone else's code?

In general, could these Git branches replace/improve the workflow we 
currently have in forge projects?

Thanks,
Crista / Diva