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

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wednesday, March 6, 2002 at 14:21:56 (-0600), Thornley, David wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: CVS and Jar files: Should you import Jar into the Repository?    
>  Why or why not
>
> I still fail to understand the problem.

What's to UNDERSTAND?  CVS manages source files which are diffable and
patchable.  Other things manage other kinds of files.  You tie all these
things together in whatever overall build and release management
processes and procedures you will need for all but he most mundane of
projects.  There are apparently even already tools that make short work
of tying these things together for Java JAR files!

> > Simple directory naming schemes are almost infinitely better!
>
> In what way is a directory naming scheme, or named tarballs, infinitely
> better?

It has all the features and capabilities necessary to fulfill your
requirements for keeping many revisions of binary files, and it has none
of the drawbacks of CVS.

>  In order for it to be infinitely better, I'd need to be causing
> infinitely hard problems by keeping binaries under CVS control.

Unless you can securely isolate all your non-diffable and non-patchable
files in modules separate from your source files, and unless you can
ensure all your CVS tools (client, server, etc.) properly handle all
aspects of binary files, and unless you can securely implement policies
stating how those modules containing binary files are to be used and
manipulated, you cannot safely use CVS in general to track revisions of
binary files.

However even a simple naming scheme "just works".  That seems to be
infinitely better to me!

Use the right tool for the job!

-- 
                                                                Greg A. Woods

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