Incidence of criss-cross merges

Hi all,

In Berlin, Julian raised the question how relevant the criss-cross
merge case actually. I think I found a reasonable merge policy
where those cases become the norm rather than an exception.

Most people seem to do what one might call "unqualified" catch-up
merges, i.e. "merge everything up to HEAD" regardless of HEAD's
state with respect to stability, features, side-effects etc.

From a process perspective, it seems much more prudent to
do "qualified" merges like "merge from /trunk up to the last
fully tested nightly build revision" and "merge from branch up
to the point that I think is safe". In both directions, there will
be changes between the catch-up source from A to B and
the merge commit form B to A (and vice versa). Even if it was
the same person doing the merge in both directions, this
situation could not be avoided.

Am I missing something or is that analysis correct? If it is,
criss-cross issues should be about as common as conflicts
themselves (depending on the relative size of to-be-merged
to not-yet-to-be-merged history).

-- Stefan^2.

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