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Re: address@hidden: Re: rename in cvs]


From: Paul Sander
Subject: Re: address@hidden: Re: rename in cvs]
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 01:49:56 -0700

>--- Forwarded mail from address@hidden

>[ On Saturday, October 13, 2001 at 12:34:03 (-0700), Paul Sander wrote: ]
>> Subject: Re: address@hidden: Re: rename in cvs]
>>
>> Greg A. Woods wrote:
>> >
>> > [ On Friday, October 12, 2001 at 20:34:48 (-0700), Paul Sander wrote: ]
>> > > Subject: Re: address@hidden: Re: rename in cvs]
>> > >
>> > > They can be stored in newphrases inside the RCS files, without breaking
>> > > compatibility.  It's still the wrong way to do it, but it's an 
>> > > improvement
>> > > over the status quo.
>> > 
>> > Well, it could be, but that would break human compatability too, and
>> > thus that's about the worst way to put such meta data.
>> 
>> Huh???  RCS and CVS can read the files (correctly, and modify them,
>> correctly), and humans aren't supposed to touch the repository directly
>> anyway.  And if humans know enough about the RCS file format, they know
>> how to identify newphrases.  And the introduced newphrases will be
>> documented, so humans who happen to read the files will still understand
>> them.

>Obviously you haven't thought through the long term consequences of
>doing something like that, especially in face of a potentially very wide
>diversity of how people might access a CVS repository.

>"Hiding" such information inside the RCS file in a non-standard
>extension, i.e. in a way that would make it invisible to "standard" RCS,
>or CVS, is not a good idea for a generic solution.

Assuming that some kind of rename capability is built into CVS that
stores additional metadata in the repository, then THAT version of
CVS would become the standard.  And presumably, the new standard CVS
would also provide a means to at least examine and perhaps modify
the new metadata.  Unless a single shop uses multiple versions of CVS
at once, there won't be any consistency problems with regard to the
use of the new metadata.

As for RCS, who cares?  CVS users aren't supposed to have direct
access to the repository anyway.  And if for some reason someone
really does need to read the contents of the CVS repository using
RCS, perhaps as a means to converting to something else, who cares?
RCS can still process the stuff it knows about.  Whatever process
lives outside of RCS will be ignorant about the new metadata and
won't use it anyway.  (If someone uses RCS to modify the repository,
then it's certainly possible to get the new metadata wrong.  But
again, who cares?  CVS repositories should be modified only by CVS
anyway.)

>--- End of forwarded message from address@hidden




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