[Zope-Coders] Re: Re: [ZODB-Dev] Re: revising layout of ZODB3 checkout

[Donovan Baarda]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 12:35:58PM -0500, Shane Hathaway wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Jeff Kowalczyk wrote:
[...]
> > and Subversion. Arch will let us make radical changes to the directory
> > layout of Xouvert, yet still be able to easily track and apply the changes
> > in the original XFree86 tree.
> 
> As I understand it, Subversion solves that problem too.  Directories are
> maintained under version control just like files, so radical directory
> layout changes are easy to handle.  Or am I imagining things?  If 
> Subversion doesn't make it easy to reorganize, I'll get behind Arch all 
> the way.

I was originaly excited by Subversion. The result thus far leaves me
less than excited. It adds move and copy support, but the branch and
merge functionality is busted. Without decent branch/merge the much
bragged about "move" functionality provides little more than a
revision history for moved files.

What you loose by migrating away from CVS is all the benefits of
familiarity, stability, and a wide toolbase. These are IMHO more
important than just adding "move". Sure, the XML+DAV+bells design and
infrustructure in theory make it easy to extend the toolbase, but
until these tools are implemented, they are just vaporware.

Arch looks like a much better design, but it is even less mature, and
the learning curve scares me. Also, the distributed repository might
actually work against it. Centralised repositories encorage
co-operation and control.. the throught of kazillions of branches
scattered everywhere will probably be scary to people trying to unify
and co-ordinate bringing together a bunch of code into a unified
product.

For those who think weak branch/merge in SVN is not a big deal; start
using a revision control tool that does it properly (PRCS or Arch) and
then tell me that. When it works properly, 95% of merges _don't_
require manual intervention, and they actually become useful.

-- 
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Donovan Baarda                http://minkirri.apana.org.au/~abo/
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