Re: [boost] File locations (was: Directory Structure)

From: Dan Nuffer (dnuffer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-12-14 10:53:40

Jeff Squyres wrote:
> -----
> 
> Finally -- a note on CVS.  Yes, CVS can be quite evil, particularly when
> you want to rename/move directories.  As noted, you can really only do
> this properly (i.e., without trashing the history) by directly mucking
> around in the CVSROOT.  Since boost is hosted on SourceForge, this can't
> be done, since no one can directly access the CVSROOT.
> 

I used to think CVS was "evil" in respect to renaming/moving
directories.  Until one day I had the "aha" moment when I realized why
it's so hard to do.  CVS preserves history.  Thus, even when everyone is
working on version 5.20.4 or something, you can still go back and check
out version 1.19.0, and all the files will be in the right place.  It's
a bad idea to move the CVSROOT directories around because then your
older versions will have the wrong directory structure, causing
makefiles to fail, documentation to be wrong, broken HTML links, etc.! 
The one disadvantage of moving or renaming directories or files is that
you lose the continuity of the history.  You don't actually lose the
history.  It's still there in the original file.  When renaming a file
it is a good idea to add something like "this file used to be
oldFile.cpp" to the first log message so people can see the older
history if they want to.  IMHO, the benefits are greater than the
disadvantages.

> However, the SourceForge folks have shown to be quite accommodating.
> I'd be willing to bet that they'll help out -- has anyone mailed them
> and asked what can be done about this?  I can't imagine that boost is
> the first project to encounter this problem.  And if they don't allow
> such thing, perhaps the boost CVSROOT can be moved elsewhere...?
> 

I've had experience with SourceForge.  They will made changes to your
CVSROOT, but it takes them a few days to do it.  However you've got to
be careful what you ask for, as it could very well mess up CVS if
something isn't done correctly.

--Dan Nuffer