Re: [Gnu-arch-users] may I pick your brains?

[Paul Pelzl]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 04:29:18PM -0800, Tom Lord wrote:
> By way of generating "raw materials" to edit into being that web site:
> what are the 5 most important things to say about arch up front?

This is something I've thought about in the past, so I'll have a go.

First, a word of caution: although distributed archive capability is
obviously a killer Arch feature for many, it's hard to briefly summarize
it without confusing the hell out of Joe CVS User.  You can throw the
keyword "distributed" into the mix, but my advice is to not dwell on it.

Here are my five points:

1) Powerful branching and merging capabilities

   Arch makes it easy for developers to test experimental features, 
   develop in parallel, or maintain private modifications to a project.
   Specialized merging operators remove much of the burden of
   integrating changes.

2) Changeset orientation

   Arch describes the history of a project as a set of changes to the
   full source tree.  This is more useful information than the per-file
   history delivered by many revision control systems.

3) Flexible transport mechanism

   Arch operates seamlessly using ssh, ftp, or http for remote access;
   it does not require its own server.  These simple transport methods
   are sufficient to enable distributed development or easily create
   archive mirrors at remote locations.

4) Robust, human-parseable archive format

   Arch archives are little more than compressed patches housed in a
   sensible directory structure.  In the unlikely event of archive
   corruption, manual repair is feasible using standard Unix utilities.

5) (tla 1.2) Cryptographically signed archives

   Archive integrity may be ensured through the use of GPG digital 
   signatures.


Paul