Merge pull request #1829 from amcastro-tri/github_issue

Documentation on how to avoid pushing directly to RobotLocomotion/drake

drake/doc/developers.rst

@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ Here are some useful links
 	code_style_guide
 	jenkins
 	known_issue
+	no_push_to_origin
 
 Here are some tips for using our favorite IDEs for development with Drake
 

drake/doc/no_push_to_origin.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+*****************************************
+Avoid Accidental Pushes to the Repository
+*****************************************
+
+The Issue
+=========
+
+We want to prevent developers from accidentally pushing changes into RobotLocomotion/drake. This is accomplished by:
+
+   1. Everybody agreeing in a naming convention for the respositories.
+   2. Providing a dummy url for the repository we want to protect.
+
+
+A Convention
+============
+
+To make the notion of ``origin`` consistent with the idea of the one repository you work with, we agree in the following convention::
+
+   "upstream"  = RobotLocomotion/drake
+   "origin" = my fork
+
+so that a simple ``git push`` will push changes into a developer's fork. This still does not prevent you from pushing into ``upstream``. To protect developers from making this simple mistake the following solution is proposed.
+
+A Solution
+==========
+A way to avoid pushing into a repository is providing a dummy url address to the repository. This is accomplished by issuing the git command::
+
+     git remote set-url --push upstream no_push
+
+where ``no_push`` is the dummy url and ``upstream`` points to RobotLocomotion/drake (recall the convention is to call your fork ``origin``).
+
+If a push to the master repository is attempted issuing a ``git push upstream my_branch``, git will return the following error message::
+
+   fatal: 'no_push' does not appear to be a git repository
+   fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
+   
+   Please make sure you have the correct access rights
+   and the repository exists.
+