Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Making microbranches popular [was: Re-linking to revlib implemented]

[James Blackwell]

> I am still a newbie with arch so I might miss something  but why not
> simply create a new archive when the current one becomes too cluttered
> to ones taste ?

Thats one possibility that works in many, but not all contexts. In some
contexts, this doesn't work very well at all. Some people create a
copious number of branches and versions over a relatively short
timeframe.

It would be rather annoying to both myself and others if I recycled
archives on a monthly basis just because I made a dozen versions that only
lived for a couple days. In fact, whole point to the original thread is
how to encourage lots of small, short lived branches rather than a few
long lived ones.

Though creating a new archive in arch is easy to do, the process still
isn't a painless one. Here are some of the side effects of moving to a
new archive: 

    1. You need to create your categories, versions and branches all
    over again in the new archive and tag them to you old ones. When I
    shifted from 2003 to 2004, I had to tag over as many as 12 versions
    in some archives.

    2. You need to inform anybody else that may be using your old
    archive that you are now developing in a new archive.

    3. As we all found out when Tom changed his old archive, it was a
    confusing process for anyone that was developing against Tom's tree.

> Since categories can easily cross archives why not use this ? And
> before you tell me about the problem of having to tag+cacherev every
> live branch by hand, this can be solved by a shell script (etla, itla?
> ) or a gui pretty easily, cant'it ?

Not easily, it can't. Deciding which versions move forward and which
ones stay behind is for the most part a decision made by the developer.

If people had a habit of sealing closed versions more often, then it
would at least become possible to try and guess which branches should be
automatically carried forwards and which ones shouldnt. 



-- 
James Blackwell      Using I.T. to bring more             570-407-0488
Owner, Inframix      business to your business     http://inframix.com

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