Re: Countering the usual diatribe against binary files, was cvs diff, proposal for change

[Kaz Kylheku]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Tom Copeland wrote:

> On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 12:12, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> > On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Tom Copeland wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2003-09-08 at 16:00, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> > > > I can import gigabytes and terabytes of binaries into CVS too, but no
> > > > matter how much I try I'll never be able to use branches meaningfully in
> > > > such a repository, 
> > > 
> > > Hm.  Do CVS branches not work right with binary files?  I've used
> > > repositories that had lots of binary files (mostly jar files) checked
> > > into them with lots of branches and haven't seen problems yet...
> > 
> > JAR files are derived objects, not primary objects.
> 
> Right... although in the case of 3rd party libraries, the line gets a
> bit blurry.  If my project depends on, say, BCEL, I think it's
> reasonable for me to check the BCEL jar file into my module/lib
> directory.

Not necesarily. Your project also depends on some operating systems and
libraries. You don't check in glibc2, the Linux kernel, or every
Windows DLL that your program uses. Your makefile needs GNU make 3.79
or later, so better check that in too!

Sometimes it's okay for binary components and tools to come from
outside of the version control system, subject to some constraints like
``requires glibc 2.1.3 or later, and Linux kernel 2.4.43 or later''.