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RE: Moving files onto an existing branch


From: Walsh, Matthew
Subject: RE: Moving files onto an existing branch
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 08:59:14 -0700

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 12:33 AM
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Moving files onto an existing branch
> 
> 
> That flies against the principles of intelligent version control.
> Changes are merged from the branch to the trunk, not the other way
> around.
> 

I find this statement rather naive. However, it does apply to CVS and
happens to be one of its biggest limitations, IMHO. It doesn't handle 
"product branches" or any level of branching more that one away from the 
main branch with any sophistication. CVS's whole paradigm is focused 
around "temporary" branches. I.e. branch to fix this bug, but merge it back 
to the main trunk of development when it works. Or branch to start release
2, 
but all subsequent changes occurring in release 1 will eventually end up in 
release 2. This is not always true in the real world. Sometimes you need to 
branch permanently, with some changes never being merged back and other 
changes needing to be merged "cross-product". And depending on your policy, 
you may require developers to merge changes from the product(main?) branch 
to the developer/feature branch before integrating their changes. 


> The proper way to integrate is to merge the branch to the 
> trunk. 

Almost, but still precludes any notion of separate product branches to
support 
multiple products off of a shared code base. Many organizations require this
kind of
support from their version control. The "proper way" to integrate is to
merge 
branches onto the product integration branch, whatever or wherever that may
be. But,
as I said above, CVS doesn't support this well. In some systems, such as
ClearCase, 
the main branch is almost becoming an historical artifact.

That being said, the original posters comments probably are correct in a CVS
world.
I just took exception to the generality of the "intelligent version control"
comment.

JMHO
Matt

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