[Zope-dev] Versions: should they die?

[Lennart Regebro]

Paul Winkler wrote:
> To anyone not following the "Problem committing  zope 'version' objects"
> thread on zope@zope.org:  It's been proposed that Versions should be
> at least stamped in the ZMI with big warnings, or possibly disabled
> altogether.  Numerous users have been bit by the fact that versions
> basically do not work as advertised, leading in various cases to zodb 
> corruption or work that can't be saved.  There are other security issues
> that Oliver Bleutgen raised privately which I won't state here.

Well, as they are, even when they are working, they are practically 
useless, since almost all even slightly complex use of Zope involves 
catalogs, and when using versions and catalogs, the catalog immediately 
gets blocked from outside change as soon as you reindex something in a 
version.

So I have no problems with versions getting dropped altogether in 2.7.

To have versions you really need a way to branch object versions and 
then merge them again. This COULD be implemented in the ZODB, but it 
might just as well be implemented on a higher level, and I'm not 
completely sure that the ZODB solution is wrong. But it is not nessecary.

> Comments?  Could we get at least some warnings in the ZMI before
> 2.6.2 final?

I think that would be good.