RE: CVS and Jar files: Should you import Jar into the Repository? Why or why not

[Thornley, David]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 2:02 PM
> To: Christian Andersson
> Cc: CVS-II Discussion Mailing List
> Subject: Re: CVS and Jar files: Should you import Jar into the
> Repository? Why or why not
> > 
> > Good one, I use that a lot :-)
> > and I also use a knife as a screwdriver a lot too :-)
> 
> No, neither analogy is in any way "good".
> 
Why not?

> With CVS and non-diff-able, non-patch-able files we're talking about
> using a tool that's not even remotely suitable for the job at hand.

Why?

CVS doesn't handle non-mergeable files well, but it doesn't really do
much worse than systems purposely designed for them.  It's less
efficient, because it's optimized to handle mergeable files, but
that doesn't mean it's unusable.

You can keep track of the files by date and tag.  You can branch them.
You can't do concurrent development or branch merging.  While these are
excellent reasons to use CVS for mergeable files, they aren't necessary
to use CVS in a more primitive fashion.

> Meanwhile if you want to do things efficiently and effectively (one of
> the very reasons for using version tracking tools in SCM in the first
> place) then please try to learn to use the right tool for the job.
> 
What if there really isn't a right tool for the job?  Then what do
you do?  Go back to bed and cry all day?  I'd rather find a usable
tool, myself.

CVS works very well for mergeable text files that don't need to be
renamed.  It works less well for non-mergeable files, and doesn't
handle renames at all well.  This doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't
be used for limited numbers of non-mergeable files and renames.