RE: Converting ClearCase to CVS

[Thornley, David]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Siegerman [mailto:address@hidden
> 
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2002 at 05:04:54PM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:

> > You either chose the wrong tool for your requirements, or 
> you chose to
> > use it in a way that it was not designed to be used.
> 
> Geez, that's just what Paul's been saying all along!  It's
> everyone else that's been treating his defence of ClearCase as
> rank heresy.
> 
No, I'm not saying ClearCase is a bad product (I don't know enough
to know if it's a good one).  I'm saying that Paul consistently
claims costs for using CVS that are tremendously beyond my experience,
and the experience of anybody on this list who's bothered to comment.
Moreover, if CVS was the administration burden Paul claims, there's
no way so many open source projects could be using it.

It's not heresy at all to say that ClearCase can do things that
CVS cannot, although it's legitimate to argue about just how
important those things are.  It's not heresy to say that CVS is
a lower-end product than ClearCase.  (It's by far the best product
I've ever used, but I don't have nearly the experience with different
version control systems that many of the regulars have.)

However, Paul claims that the cost to use CVS is comparable to
the cost to use ClearCase, and I find that unbelievable.  He
doesn't specify certain uses or environments, but seems to make
the claim overall.  Since the costs, by his assessment, make
the use of CVS uneconomical in most cases (including very many
where it is successful), this is seen as falsely denigrating
CVS, and on a CVS list this is going to provoke people.