diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 93 |
1 files changed, 68 insertions, 25 deletions
@@ -1,53 +1,96 @@ # Miscellaneous auto-load Vim scripts -The git repository at [github.com/xolox/vim-misc] [repository] contains Vim scripts that are used by most of the [Vim plug-ins I've written] [plugins] yet don't really belong with any single one of the plug-ins. Basically it's an extended standard library of Vim script functions that I wrote during the development of my Vim plug-ins. +The git repository at [github.com/xolox/vim-misc] [repository] contains Vim +scripts that are used by most of the [Vim plug-ins I've written] [plugins] yet +don't really belong with any single one of the plug-ins. Basically it's an +extended standard library of Vim script functions that I wrote during the +development of my Vim plug-ins. -The miscellaneous scripts are bundled with each of my plug-ins using git merges, so that a repository checkout of a plug-in contains everything that's needed to get started. This means the git repository of the miscellaneous scripts is only used to track changes in a central, public place. +The miscellaneous scripts are bundled with each of my plug-ins using git +merges, so that a repository checkout of a plug-in contains everything that's +needed to get started. This means the git repository of the miscellaneous +scripts is only used to track changes in a central, public place. ## How does it work? Here's how I merge the miscellaneous scripts into a Vim plug-in repository: -1. Let git know about the `vim-misc` repository by adding the remote GitHub repository: +1. Let git know about the `vim-misc` repository by adding the remote GitHub + repository: git remote add -f vim-misc https://github.com/xolox/vim-misc.git -2. Merge the two directory trees without clobbering the `README.md` and/or `.gitignore` files, thanks to the selected merge strategy and options: +2. Merge the two directory trees without clobbering the `README.md` and/or + `.gitignore` files, thanks to the selected merge strategy and options: git checkout master git merge --no-commit -s recursive -X ours vim-misc/master git commit -m "Merge vim-misc repository as overlay" -3. While steps 1 and 2 need to be done only once for a given repository, the following commands are needed every time I want to pull and merge the latest changes: +3. While steps 1 and 2 need to be done only once for a given repository, the + following commands are needed every time I want to pull and merge the latest + changes: git checkout master git fetch vim-misc master git merge --no-commit -s recursive -X ours vim-misc/master git commit -m "Merged changes to miscellaneous scripts" -## Why make things so complex? - -I came up with this solution after multiple years of back and forth between Vim Online users, the GitHub crowd and my own sanity: - -1. When I started publishing my first Vim plug-ins (in June 2010) I would prepare ZIP archives for Vim Online using makefiles. The makefiles would make sure the miscellaneous scripts were included in the uploaded distributions. This had two disadvantages: It lost git history and the repositories on GitHub were not usable out of the box, so [I got complaints from GitHub (Pathogen) users] [github-complaints]. - -2. My second attempt to solve the problem used git submodules which seemed like the ideal solution until I actually started using them in March 2011: Submodules are not initialized during a normal `git clone`, you need to use `git clone --recursive` instead but Vim plug-in managers like [Pathogen] [pathogen] and [Vundle] [vundle] don't do this (at least [they didn't when I tried] [vundle-discussion]) so people would end up with broken checkouts. - -3. After finding out that git submodules were not going to solve my problems I searched for other inclusion strategies supported by git. After a while I came upon the [subtree merge strategy] [merge-strategy] which I started using in May 2011 and stuck with for more than two years (because it generally worked fine and seemed quite robust). - -4. In April 2013 the flat layout of the repository started bothering me because it broke my personal workflow, so I changed it to the proper directory layout of a Vim plug-in. Why did it break my workflow? Because I couldn't get my [vim-reload] [reload] plug-in to properly reload miscellaneous scripts without nasty hacks. Note to self: [Dropbox does not respect symbolic links] [dropbox-vote-350] and Vim doesn't like them either ([E746] [E746]). - -## Compatibility issues - -Regardless of the inclusion strategies discussed above, my current scheme has a flaw: If more than one of my plug-ins are installed in a Vim profile using [Pathogen] [pathogen] or [Vundle] [vundle], the miscellaneous autoload scripts will all be loaded from the subdirectory of one single plug-in. - -This means that when I break compatibility in the miscellaneous scripts, I have to make sure to merge the changes into all of my plug-ins. Even then, if a user has more than one of my plug-ins installed but updates only one of them, the other plug-ins (that are not yet up to date) can break (because of the backwards incompatible change). - -The `xolox#misc#compat#check()` function makes sure that incompatibilities are detected early so that the user knows which plug-in to update if incompatibilities arise. +### Why make things so complex? + +I came up with this solution after multiple years of back and forth between Vim +Online users, the GitHub crowd and my own sanity: + +1. When I started publishing my first Vim plug-ins (in June 2010) I would + prepare ZIP archives for Vim Online using makefiles. The makefiles would + make sure the miscellaneous scripts were included in the uploaded + distributions. This had two disadvantages: It lost git history and the + repositories on GitHub were not usable out of the box, so [I got complaints + from GitHub (Pathogen) users] [github-complaints]. + +2. My second attempt to solve the problem used git submodules which seemed like + the ideal solution until I actually started using them in March 2011: + Submodules are not initialized during a normal `git clone`, you need to use + `git clone --recursive` instead but Vim plug-in managers like [Pathogen] + [pathogen] and [Vundle] [vundle] don't do this (at least [they didn't when I + tried] [vundle-discussion]) so people would end up with broken checkouts. + +3. After finding out that git submodules were not going to solve my problems I + searched for other inclusion strategies supported by git. After a while I + came upon the [subtree merge strategy] [merge-strategy] which I started + using in May 2011 and stuck with for more than two years (because it + generally worked fine and seemed quite robust). + +4. In April 2013 the flat layout of the repository started bothering me because + it broke my personal workflow, so I changed it to the proper directory + layout of a Vim plug-in. Why did it break my workflow? Because I couldn't + get my [vim-reload] [reload] plug-in to properly reload miscellaneous + scripts without nasty hacks. Note to self: [Dropbox does not respect + symbolic links] [dropbox-vote-350] and Vim doesn't like them either ([E746] + [E746]). + +### Compatibility issues + +Regardless of the inclusion strategies discussed above, my current scheme has a +flaw: If more than one of my plug-ins are installed in a Vim profile using +[Pathogen] [pathogen] or [Vundle] [vundle], the miscellaneous autoload scripts +will all be loaded from the subdirectory of one single plug-in. + +This means that when I break compatibility in the miscellaneous scripts, I have +to make sure to merge the changes into all of my plug-ins. Even then, if a user +has more than one of my plug-ins installed but updates only one of them, the +other plug-ins (that are not yet up to date) can break (because of the +backwards incompatible change). + +The `xolox#misc#compat#check()` function makes sure that incompatibilities are +detected early so that the user knows which plug-in to update if +incompatibilities arise. ## Contact -If you have questions, bug reports, suggestions, etc. the author can be contacted at <peter@peterodding.com>. The latest version is available at <http://peterodding.com/code/vim/misc> and <http://github.com/xolox/vim-misc>. +If you have questions, bug reports, suggestions, etc. the author can be +contacted at <peter@peterodding.com>. The latest version is available at +<http://peterodding.com/code/vim/misc> and <http://github.com/xolox/vim-misc>. ## License |