[boost] Re: Checking out latest Boost lock problem

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-01-31 11:17:21

[DongInn, I have Cc'd you because there are two problems with the
Boost mailing list cited here]

[Doug G., you need to answer a question below]

"Jeff Garland" <jeff_at_[hidden]> writes:

> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 23:33:45 -0500, David Abrahams wrote
>> "Jeff Garland" <jeff_at_[hidden]> writes:
>> 
>> > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:15:18 -0500, Edward Diener wrote
>> >> troy d. straszheim wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> I am all for Subversion also, since I have used it successfully in
>> >> professional work and am doing so now. It is irritating that one is 
>> >> not able to get the latest Boost because of these lock problems. 
>> >> However that may not be a CVS versus Subversion issue. No doubt a 
>> >> CVS expert will tell me whether it is or not.
>> 
>> Yes, we have run to the edge of CVS's capabilities.  How long does it
>> take you to update?
>
> Honestly, I don't know -- I don't update that frequently (maybe every few
> weeks) so updates aren't a big deal for me.  I'm not going to speak out
> against converting -- I recognize the limits of CVS and understand that others
> may be constrained by them now.  My only caution is that we need to be
> methodical and ensure that boost development isn't ground to a halt --
> everyone is going to have to invest time to make any conversion happen.

I'm all for being methodical, but honestly if boost development ground
to a halt for a couple of days I think we'd survive.

>> > Subversion isn't a realistic choice at the moment unless we are
>> > going to move away from sourceforge for repository hosting.
>> 
>> Actually the moderators have been discussing doing just that.  OSL is
>> going to provide us with SVN support.  The mods just agreed that I
>> would announce the idea here so people can get used to it, and so we
>> can make the move when the resources become available (about a month
>> away).
>
> I assume OSL is the Open Systems Lab at Indiana Univ.

Yes.

>> OSL will administer the hardware; they have several projects using
>> Subversion at OSL, at least one of which is comparable in size to
>> Boost.  Hopefully their sysadmins will grant the boost moderators 
>> full admin privileges over the SVN repository.  Doug Gregor (who is 
>> at OSL) says:
>> 
>>   "I think we can do this. Subversion doesn't seem to have quite as 
>> many    issues as CVS, so we shouldn't need help as often, but the 
>> sysadmins    will be responsive and there are several Boosters on-site."
>
> I have my doubts that they are comparible in size w.r.t number of users.  Are
> these internal projects or external projects?  

I can't answer this one... Doug?

> Please don't take this next statement wrong -- I appreciate greatly
> the contribution of OSL folks and resources -- just trying to make
> sure before we jump off of something that is basically working from
> my view.  Since we moved the mailing lists there have been issues
> that never got resolved -- specifically, the archive seems to lose
> messages or get stuck 

That archiving software ** sucks **.  Subversion is, in my experience,
much better engineered.

> and posts take up to 30 minutes to be processed and reflected back.

Is that still the case?

> That was a clear step down from Yahoo groups which was basically
> immediate response and never lost a message.  Again, I'm not
> complaining or blaming -- I suspect that the admins at OSL are just
> dealing with buggy / non-performant mailing list software.  But the
> question is, how can we ensure we don't have a similar service
> degredation issues with a conversion to subversion? We can survive
> the issues with the mailing list easier than we can the repository
> -- although both of the mailing list problems are reasonably
> serious.

>> > * Should we move boost-sandbox first to gain experience?
>> 
>> Interesting idea.
>
> I think we should use the actual boost source tree.  The sandbox doesn't have
> the same scale or activity.  I'm not sure how to really test it short of
> people actually developing against it and then somehow taking finished results
> back to CVS during the transition.  
>
> Maybe we need to have a coordinated test where we all agree to pull down the
> whole repository at a certain time -- just to make sure the
> machines/network/software is really up to the task?  

That's a bad test IMO.  If we all hit CVS at the same time, how good
do you think the response time will be?

> Maybe there are other tests we should do before jumping ship?

Name 'em and we can consider them.  Otherwise it's just FUD.

> One last question, how much of our version history will we lose?

None.

> Will be still be able to pull the 1.32 branch out of subversion

Yes.

>  or
> will we have to go back to the legacy repository to see this?  There
> are tools for conversion, but there are lots of options.  Someone
> will need to take a long look at this, but if we convert I'd like to
> see us convert for good and not lose history in the process.  See
> http://cvs2svn.tigris.org/cvs2svn.html for more.

OSL has already done several conversions; it's not that complicated.

>
> Jeff
>
> ps: The lock is still stuck -- I was running an update test and got the
> problem....

You shouild report it to the SourceForge admins and ask them to clear it.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com