Re: CVS should die

Tom Lane wrote:
> ... There aren't
> any alternatives that are enough better than CVS to be worth the
> changeover effort.
>
I've done some research over the last couple of days for a fairly big
project where we face the challenges of breaking up a monolith into
modules and consequently will be forced to move a lot of files. I now
second Tom's opinion. Here's why:

Subversion doesn't move files. They copy and delete. So if you have
parallel work on a file that is "moved", you are headed for problems.
See threads:

"Question about rename" on users(at)subversion(dot)tigris(dot)org
news://news.gmane.org:119/cmsqci$s9q$1(at)sea(dot)gmane(dot)org

and

"Misinforming the user on rename with local changes"
dev(at)subversion(dot)tigris(dot)org
news://news.gmane.org:119/419379F3(dot)5070302(at)ftml(dot)net

What I find especially intriguing is that although Subversion have
version controlled directories, they still identify the content of the
files using the location in the repository rather than using a globally
unique identifier. Didn't they anticipate files being moved around and
perhaps linked?

This thread started due to CVS problems with moving files and Subversion
will perhaps get there eventually but IMHO they are certainly not there yet.

GNU-Arch seems promising in some respects. It really can rename files
and track them using an id, but it doesn't run on Windows without Cygwin
(and even then not too well it seems). Personally I dislike the fact
that the author seems somewhat religious about free software and hostile
towards Windows instead of focusing on delivering a portable solution.
In my case, the fact that GNU-Arch is not portable is reason enough to
discard it as a viable alternative and I think it would be unfortunate
if PostgreSQL locked Windows users out from repository access.

The other Open Source alternatives are, IMHO not mature enough to be
considered for serious projects yet.

I wish ClearCase was fast, free, and suitable for distributed
development :-) Unfortunately it's slow, expensive, and extremely
network intensive. My approach will be to wait and perhaps contribute to
Subversion if I get some time left. They really need a great database
backend.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren