RE: How well does CVS handle other types of data?

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Friday, July 13, 2001 at 10:01:19 (+1200), Chris Cameron wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: How well does CVS handle other types of data?
>
> But Greg, you say CVS is a source code management tool (really an ASCII text
> file management tool, given all the caveats you add) and the manual excerpt
> you quote says CVS is 'a version control system'.  A version control system
> DOES NOT IMPLY source code management.

In this case it clearly and absolutely does.  I quote from the manual again:

    What is CVS?
    ============

       CVS is a version control system.  Using it, you can record the
    history of your source files.
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^
                    ||||||||||||

Please pay special attention to the last two indicated words!

Note also that CVS uses RCS files.  RCS uses diff and diff3.  All these
things together imply that CVS only handles text files.  Q.E.D.

> You keep saying to find the screwdriver instead of using the hammer, but
> a. is it really a hammer for a screw?  It is still being used for version
> control.  The users have decided the 'merge' features are not important, it
> is the version control they want.
> b. where do they find out about screwdrivers?  Are there any screwdrivers or
> only your hammer plus string and glue solution?

CVS is a hammer.  Source files are nails.  Non-mergable files are
machine screws with TORX heads.  You can't effectively drive a TORX head
machine screw with a hammer.  You can't effectively manage non-mergable
files with CVS.

Maybe your screwdriver is simply a directory naming convention on a
network drive.  Maybe it's SSH+RCS.  Maybe it's something else entirely.

You already have a build system (since of course CVS is not a build
system).  It already deals with software configuration components that
are not source files stored in CVS.  Adding the ability to deal with
non-mergable files from some other source is a trivial feature to add to
it.

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

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