RE: BRANCH LABEL FOR DIRECTORIES

[Chris Cameron]

So now you're saying that it could be included OOTB AND that you've proposed
it in the past.  But you've been arguing that this is a BAD IDEA (TM) and
seem to continue that position later in the same e-mail!

I'm just sitting on the sideline and observing this one, but you seem to be
trying to have your cake and eat it!

***************************************************************
Chris Cameron                       Open Telecommunications Ltd
Product Manager                           IN Product Management
address@hidden                           P.O.Box 10-388
      +64 4 495 8403 (DDI)                          The Terrace
fax:  +64 4 495 8419                                 Wellington
cell: +64 21 650 680                                New Zealand
Life, don't talk to me about life ....(Marvin - HHGTTG)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden Behalf Of
> Greg A. Woods
> Sent: Tuesday, 19 June 2001 9:04 a.m.
> To: CVS-II Discussion Mailing List
> Subject: Re: BRANCH LABEL FOR DIRECTORIES
>
>
> [ On Monday, June 18, 2001 at 15:18:16 (-0400), Noel L Yap wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: BRANCH LABEL FOR DIRECTORIES
> >
> > So why not have CVS do this work OOTB?
>
> You could.  It's been proposed several times before.  Nobody's stepped
> up to write the code.  Even though I've also proposed it in the past, my
> proposal was in response to someone else's problem and of late I've not
> even had time to implement the solutions to my own problems, let alone
> anyone else's!  ;-)
>
> It should be quite trivial to add such rename functionality to any of
> the more advanced font-ends to CVS (be they either stand alone clients,
> or wrappers that just call the existing command-line client).  Even the
> handling of the manual parts of merging renamed/moved files could be
> done in the client and/or front-end.  There's not even any need to do
> anything fancy -- just search back for magic rename comments in files
> that had no changes merged and if they are the result of a rename then
> go look (recursively) for the ancestor revision in the old file(s) and
> "manually" do the merge on the client side.  Nothing at all needs to be
> changed in the repository structure to support such functionality.
>
> If people really want it then _they_ should build it!  CVS is user
> supported software!
>
> > How 'bout:  Your company decides to change its name or goes
> through a merger and
> > you're programming in Java?
>
> I'd say that people using CVS for Java (at least with traditional java
> development environments) are already on the verge of being in the land
> of the truly unsupported anyway.....
>
> > In any case, /why/ would it matter why anyone would do this?
> The fact is that
> > it's a request commonly made.  Your answer seems to be to deem
> that request as
> > being "wrong".
>
> People make stupid and idiotic requests of all kinds of things all the
> time.  Only marketing departments ever seem to see any need to satisfy
> them.  There's nothing "wrong" with telling someone that their request
> is "wrong"/inappropriate/out-of-place if that's the case.
>
> I thought most of us in the software world were supposed to be more in
> tune with doing careful requirements analysis and such.
>
> > In the end, every product is market-driven -- if there's no
> need for CVS, it
> > wouldn't exist.
>
> Sorry, I should have qualified that as "mass-market" (though I did
> qualify CVS as "niche market").
>
> > I think Greg has been saying that CVS is a niche product and
> that it shouldn't
> > braoden it's horizons.  So, if:
> > 1. You have binary files,
> > 2. You _ever_ need to rename files for the lifetime of your project,
> > 3. You want to version directories,
> > 4. You want to reuse a filename that's been rm'd in the past but with a
> > different type,
> > 5. Possibly others I can't think of right now,
> >
> > then don't use CVS.
>
> Well, not exactly 100% on all those points, but within reason.
>
> In this forum 99.999% of the FAQs that have no existing answer in
> context are from people who should not be using CVS in the first place
> (or who can't find anything better and are then uwilling to figure out
> how to use CVS properly).
>
> In fact there's obviously a very strong demand for something to fill the
> niche that CVS fits well into....  The only problem is that at least
> half the people in the world who are not in that niche seem to think
> that they should be able to use CVS for whatever hair-brained idea
> they've got too.
>
> If someone wants a tool with broader horizons than CVS then they should
> build it (and call it something else, of course ;-).  If it eventually
> replaces CVS entirely then that's OK.  If it doesn't then those in the
> niche where CVS fits will still have an appropriate tool to use to meet
> their needs.
>
> --
>                                                       Greg A. Woods
>
> +1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <address@hidden>     <address@hidden>
> Planix, Inc. <address@hidden>;   Secrets of the Weird <address@hidden>
>
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