GitHead questions from the uninitiated

[Jeremy Nicoll - ml get_iplayer]

Alan Milewczyk <alan at soulman1949.com> wrote:

> In the last week or so, I've been patching get_iplayer using GitHeadWin to
> make sure I'm using the latest version.

That's not necessarily very sensible.  If you look through the commits log
(as other people have suggested) you'll quite often see instances of some
change being made and in the next few days more work being done in the same
area of the code when it's discovered that the first chunk of work didn't
take everything necessary into account.  If you patch at every opportunity
you're as likely to give yourself problems as you are to get better code.

It's probably a better idea to read the commits log and the descriptions of
what's being changed, and every so often, when you think they may represent
a moderately stable stage in development, grab the latest version. Or do
what almost every user does, wait until DP announces a new /stable/ version
here, and grab that.    

Or, only grab a newer version from git if you've read here that some
just-discovered problem - which you're experiencing - has just been fixed in
git.   

-- 
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.