Re: [glob2-devel] Hello, I'm back, and lots of comments....

[Kai Antweiler]

>>>Of course, at some point we will have to do more radical changes, but it
> would be nice to have a stable release lying around when doing this.
>
> Thats exactly that. New featuires in CVS stop, all bugs fixed, then code
> exported and imported into a new source tracker.

Having two separated branches is easy in cvs.  The tricky part is
merging some changes between them.  And here even cvs is better than
having two totally separated systems.


>>>If we do a radical switch, why subversion and not something more
> distributed ? I know it is always the same questions, but while better,
> subversion does not fundamentally solve cvs's problems.
>
> SVN is far easier for many developers. Many project, if not all, that I keep
> track of have moved to SVN. For example BZFlag moved to SVN not more than 1
> month ago. They saw the benefits, and so should we.

I don't think that svn will be easier.
Most systems support cvs like commands and you always need only few
commands.  Normal version management isn't complicated.  Mostly you
have things you can do and things that don't work well or don't work
at all.
With distributated repositories you can try your commands
(and branch merges) locally and push them into the central repository
when you know everything work right.


> I'm not using trac as the website. We would have the current wiki which
> would be for releases, and player information like the nmaual. TRAC would
> simply take out all developing information in thew wiki, to tidy it up, but
> to also improve organisation. It would be a central place for all developer
> stuff (and even better than both the wiki and SVN are linked with TRAC)
> rather than using a rather crammed and outdated wiki for some "proposed
> changes". By moving to TRAC, these ideas could be worked on further and
> easily linked to source code changes to show progress.

Could work.  But even if it is better, the users have to accept it.
Our bugtracker is rejected by lots of people even where it has
advantages.  We can try to offer trac for new wishes, bugs and tasks
and see how well it gets accepted.


>>>In which aspect the integration is better than now? Is it because of a
> single username/password?
>
> That and as noted above, the information will be in one central place, thus
> improving organisation.

I don't care if our central repository is in place A, the bug tracker in
place B, the documentation in place C and the mailing list is in place D.
This is at worst a very minor inconvenience.


>>>In your transfer suggestion, we would loose all cvs history?
>
> Yes and No. CVS would still be used for all 0.8.x bug fixes made and the
> history there would still be availble. For example, it could go as high as
> 0.8.50 in three years time, but it would only be bug fixes (creating a
> stable version) until 0.9.0 is finished and thus ready for lots of testing
> and bug fixing to get that stable. So CVS wouldn't vanish or be dorment, but
> it woulnd't be the primary source tracker anymore. The import to SVN would
> loose the histroy, but import will only be done when currently developing
> features are finished and bug fixes are made. So loosing the history on a
> semi stable release shouldn't be a major downfall, consdiering when its
> imported, most stuff will break from development anyway.

I think savannah supports conversion of cvs history to svn and git
repositories.  And I have a git repository of our MAIN branch
locally on my computer.  I only use it as intermediate step to mercurial,
but at least the MAIN branch is complete.
We have other branches in cvs that could be contiuned someday.


> The only work on you part will be fixing the bugs in the tracker

This will take awhile.  I hope you don't get bored.


> (no more major new features will be added, mostly bug fixes)

I know that Bradley won't like this.


>>>Holding a release schedule for a project like glob2 with people having
> external constraints such as school or work is a bit of an illusion, but you
> are right in the sense we should release more often with release candidates.
>
> Well, the idea of nightly source tarballs would work well here instead then.
> That way people can download each night (if they can't get into CVS/SVN) and
> see if bugs are fixed. That way no work from people would be needed to
> release the source for testing. Result: More bug reports, stabler product
> each day.

I think the snapshots are a good thing, but we wouldn't need them daily.
It is always night somewhere on earth.


>>>Sorry to be so negative in my answer, but in general I tend to misstrust
> solutions than want to solve problems by reorganisation when the problem is
> lack of raw work force. And also I think there is really something to
> improve with cvs, I don't think svn will this much.


> They can keep everything 0.9.0 related in one simple to navigate place and
> not have to rely apon a seperate bug trackler, seperate wiki, and seperate
> source tracker.

Well I commit to the repository by commandline.
I watch the bugtracker with a webbrowser.
I don't see why having both at same place helps me.
(By the way:  I feel better with having a repository (including all history)
 locally.)
And our system already is easy to browse.
We can put up additional links on our wiki, where it is not easy to browse.


> Oh, you are no longer the maintainer? That I hadn't read about yet. Did
> someone like Kyle or Bradley take over?

Bradley.


>>FROM Kai:
>
>>>We already can have subversion on savannah, but it is in beta status.  And
> I don't trust nondistributed source code managemant system in beta
> status.  When something goes wrong in distributed system every one still got
> correct repositories.  With svn we're lost. DevjaVu is beta too.  I don't
> know how long it will stay alive.
>
> I have hosted a project with DevjaVu for almost 4 months now and not once
> have a gone there to find the site down. Its been pretty good. Besides, if
> you are worried, when you commit, don't delete off your computer (that way,
> if it goes down and you want to switch, which I'm hoping will never happen,
> its a good service) you just commit to the old CVS system (which IMO would
> be a bad idea, but hey, we got to keep development alive :P) and work from
> there.

And loose all the history!
No thanks.  I constantly use it when fixing bugs.  And when you loose
history you can't merge efficiently anymore.  All but one branch in Devjavu
will defacto be lost.


>>>As I understand, we need cygwin or mingw to install glob2 on windows. In
> this case we should use git, which is already available on savannah as well
> and is distributed (so no risks of loosing something, and much more
> advantages concidering merging, branching and convenience). Also it has less
> dependency. Beside being better than svn, it has the feature of one-to-one
> convertability with mercurial and darcs supports (local) git repositories.
>
> So you are against moving to TRAC/SVN? Remember the point of moving to SVN
> was also for the documentation and organization of all developing
> information in one central place. CVS or Git on Savannah provide no such
> service.

This argument is in my opinion very inferior.
With a system like git we wouldn't even a discussion with Bradley whether
we should have quick bugfix release next.  Using different branches would
be natural.  And merging would work well.


> Keep thinking about it. I've started moving wiki pages over to TRAC (which
> atm are incompatible, but I WILL fix within 2-3 days if all things go well)
> and blanking the old ones. Dont worry, I've kept revisions, so if it doesn't
> work out, I'll just go back to the old copies. It should be ready for use in
> less than a week.


Why?  Do you get money from devjavu? ;-)
Or why don't you want savannah to do half of the work for you for free and
better?  They have trac support too.


I really like that you want to work on glob2 infrastructure.
But even though switching to svn now on another server might seem to you
an advantage, it is an really big back drop.
I hear a lot of people talking about how good svn is.  When I ask about
it's advantages to git, darcs, monotone, mercurial or bazaar I always
hear that they haven't tried them.
So instead of spending your time to port everything right now, better
have a look at those systems.
-- 
Kai Antweiler