Re: giving up CVS

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Friday, September 14, 2001 at 12:44:12 (-0700), Edward Peschko wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: giving up CVS
>
> Note that serialization would provide a generic, standard way of handling 
> this problem:
> 
> cvs commit (binary data)
> 
>       # serialization automatically picks up on the fact that this is binary
>       # data, does gzip,uuencode on file
> 
> # In CVS, at beginning of file
> 
> @binary:
>       storage_method=gzip,uuencode \
>       permissions=755

That does not help -- it makes the problem harder.

now CVS can potentially merge what were once unmergable files.  It might
even do this without making much noise about it.  if the file format
you've chosen isn't very robust you'll end up with a damaged file.

you're not thinking about the bigger picture -- you cannot break CVS
down into a bunch of tiny bits and improve one of them and then expect
to put it back together and have it be more useful as a result.
instead, more often than not, you will break the whole thing.

The correct solution is for the developer to understand the limits of
his or her tools and to apply them appropriately, always using the right
one for the job.  CVS is never the "right" tool for tracking changes to
unmergable files.  There are much better tools for that job (which,
curiously, are often much worse at handling source code).

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

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