Re: built files in CVS

[Steve M. Robbins]

On Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 04:15:25PM +0200, Didier Verna wrote:
> "Steve M. Robbins" <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > Clearly, built files can be recovered from their sources, so why
> > put them into version-control?
> 
>         Take it the other way around: these (generated) files are the same for
> everybody, so why putting on thousands of people the burden of generating the
> same files over and over again ?

But they are manifestly NOT the same for everybody.  There are stupid
little differences like

address@hidden diff -r 1.336 -r 1.337 Makefile.in
Index: Makefile.in
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/automake/automake/Makefile.in,v
retrieving revision 1.336
retrieving revision 1.337
diff -u -b -B -r1.336 -r1.337
--- Makefile.in 2001/09/17 14:32:07     1.336
+++ Makefile.in 2001/09/22 16:05:36     1.337
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Makefile.in generated automatically by automake 1.4k from Makefile.am.
+# Makefile.in generated automatically by automake 1.4s from Makefile.am.
 
 # Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
 # Free Software Foundation, Inc.

which are a pain in the neck.


>         An even better reason: more and more people use CVS instead of
> tarballs, including people that are not developers. So you actually want your
> archive to look like a distribution tarball. You don't want to require from
> all CVS users to have the developer tools needed to rebuild the generated
> files.

Yeah, I know.  I've been through this argument a half-dozen times
before on other lists.  I don't think it is appropriate to go through
the arguments again here.

Suffice it to say that I believe that CVS is the wrong tool for this.
Most, if not all, of the other projects with which I am familiar agree
with me.  Autoconf and automake are the two glaring counter-examples,
so I wondered if they knew something that I didn't.

-Steve

-- 
by Rocket to the Moon,
by Airplane to the Rocket,
by Taxi to the Airport,
by Frontdoor to the Taxi,
by throwing back the blanket and laying down the legs ...
- They Might Be Giants