[Zope3-dev] RE: [ZODB-Dev] Subversion repository layout

[Tim Peters]

[Tim Peters]
>> ...
>> IOW, the existing subversion docs cover "the standard" layout quite
>> well. If we do something unique, I'm afraid it becomes another piece
>> of folklore that will be impossible to guess and difficult to find
>> out about.

[Martijn Faassen]
> I don't know much about subversion, but this strikes me as a good
> argument for sticking with the standard layout.

The "I don't know" part is exactly why I would prefer a standard layout.  I
didn't know anything about subversion, but the online book looks very good:

    http://svnbook.red-bean.com/

After reading (parts of) that, I thought I knew what the standard layout
looked like, and why.  Appendix A is especially for CVS users, and has a
giant warning box saying:

    Warning

    Since Subversion treats branches and tags as ordinary directories,
    always remember to check out the trunk
    http://svn.example.com/repos/calc/trunk/) of your project, and not
    the project itself (http://svn.example.com/repos/calc/). If you make
    the mistake of checking out the project itself, you'll wind up with a
    working copy that contains a copy of your project for every branch
    and tag you have [That is, providing you don't run out of disk space
    before your checkout finishes.]

"The standard" layout is assumed, like it is there, all over the book.

Now if we change it to something we "like better", the people doing the
change will understand it completely, but few others will, and those relying
on the svnbook docs to get up to speed will discover (probably the hard way)
that all the examples in the book are wrong for Zope's unique layout.

So I think it would do more harm than good, unless it does a lot more good
than just saving me from typing an extra "trunk/" now & again.  In the
standard layout, each project has a "trunk", "branches", and "tags"
subdirectory, containing what you already think they contain -- it's quite
logical and elegant.