[fpc-devel] 134 open merge requests - is that normal?

[Wayne Sherman]

On Tue, Apr 7, 2026 at 3:16 AM Juha Manninen via fpc-devel
<fpc-devel at lists.freepascal.org> wrote:
> Marco van de Voort via fpc-devel kirjoitti 7.4.2026 klo 11.41:
> >  Florian already mentioned the submodule problems.
>
> Years ago when studying Git, I tried to understand submodules. I did not
> find any valid use case for them. They were somehow weird in every
> situation. I don't remember details but partly for that reason I never
> used them myself.
> Get rid of submodules in FPC sources and those problems go away.
> Juha

I don't want to paste a wall of text.  But I find it useful to explore
these ideas via LLM:

For a large compiler project which depends on other git repositories,
should submodules or subtrees be used? What is the difference?  Also
some massive projects use external tools like Google's repo tool or
Zephyr's west to manage many related repositories via a manifest file,
bypassing Git-native submodule/subtree limitations.  But that adds
another dependency.  What are the advantages and disadvantages of
using an external tool with a manifest file?

The Free Pascal project (https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc)
formerly had a development workflow based around SVN.  They have
migrated to GIT, but the workflow needs adjustment because there are
many uncommitted merge requests and new compiler releases have
stalled.  Other large and successful projects using Git include the
Linux kernel and the Rust language and compiler project.  Other large
compiler projects like LLVM and GCC also migrated from SVN.  What can
we learn from these projects about development and git workflow
strategies that work well?  What parts of the Free Pascal development
and Git workflow should be examined and possibly changed?  Keep in
mind that reasons other than the workflow might also be causing the
lack of progress.  What other reasons might be the cause?