Discuss Server Repository Structure

[DominicOram]

As a developer I would like to minimise the amount of time I have to spend switching branches, whilst still making sure things are tidy. We should have a discussion as to whether the current repository structure does this.

Acceptance Criteria

• A discussion is held about how we could improve our repository structure
• The agreed new structure is documented and a ticket created to implement

[FreddieAkeroyd]

Some things to think about

Do we have too many repositories and are we using submodules right.

For third party epics modules I think separate repositories work well, they can be swapped/upgraded/versioned on separate branches, they do not change very often, and we may want to replace then with a fork rather than import a vendor branch at some point.

When we add a new stream device ioc, we end up with a new support repository, then branches in ioc, device emulator, ioc test, css screen. Do we want to combine these more e.g, should the emulator, test, css, ioc etc all be in the same (new) repository? Or maybe share a repository for some of these elements

Potential alternatives to submodules: git subtree, google repo https://android.googlesource.com/tools/repo

[DominicOram]

As part of this discussion we also need to work out the structure of IocTestFramework (#6093)

[DominicOram]

Will affect the way the IOC generator works (e.g. like #3431)

[FreddieAkeroyd]

Some repository management tools:

• google repo https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo but windows support is best effort https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo/+/HEAD/docs/windows.md
• chromium gclient https://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/depottools and https://pypi.org/project/gclient/
• jiri https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/jiri/
• git subrepo https://github.com/ingydotnet/git-subrepo
• git subtrees https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/git-subtree https://tsh.io/blog/git-subtree-or-how-i-stopped-worrying-and-learned-to-love-external-dependencies/

https://www.edureka.co/blog/git-submodules-versus-googles-repo-tool

[DominicOram]

Can we rename master to main at the same time?

[John-Holt-Tessella]

• rename directory called master to subrepo or something similar

[davidkeymer]

Could this be an opportunity to rename our account(?) from the now obsolete "ISIS Computing Group" to the current "ISIS Experiment Controls"? I realise this may not be possible and even if it is, may cause more trouble than it's worth!