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Re: future of cvs


From: Paul Sander
Subject: Re: future of cvs
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 12:58:19 -0700


On Sep 5, 2005, at 11:26 AM, address@hidden wrote:

Paul Sander wrote:
Is it possible the repository to be touched carefully for file/directory renaming purpose? I read somewhere that the human readable form of the cvs repository is an advantage over subversion. What will happen if we simply rearrange the repository (the folders and ,v files there) and checkout again?
You can, but if you do the reorg in-place then you lose the ability to recover old configurations in the proper shape. If you copy the RCS files in a new directory structure with the new shape, then you double the size of your repository and retrain the users. There are also hidden costs with respect to having the users repopulate their workspace, debugging problems when they don't, and having your existing baselines go out of date.

Yes, I understand this.

I figure out that in a small team and relatively mature project it would not hurt to copy the repository, rearrange and check out new, locking the old repository for historical purposes.

But what is clear is that there are different methods, with different pros and cons and one should choose.

What is interesting is that the need to rearrange seems quite pressing for every serious project, but cvs can not address it and this does not seem to be in plan. Is this a design problem - cvs builds on top of the rcs files and they do not support such expansion?


You are correct that nearly all non-trivial projects must at one time or another suffer some kind of reorganization. There has been talk about adding such a capability to CVS for many years, but it's a difficult problem, and certain vocal individuals don't seem to get that it's a serious design flaw.

FWIW, I believe that the ability to rename files can be built, and recently I've realized a potential method that could preserve backward compatibility in the repository. I'm finally able to start researching the possibilities in earnest now and if anything comes of it I'll present it here. Don't hold your breath, though, because one thing leads to another and another, and the result will be very intrusive into the existing design.
--
Paul Sander | "Lets stick to the new mistakes and get rid of the old
address@hidden | ones" -- William Brown





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