Re: [boost] Re: Steps before moving to Subversion

From: Caleb Epstein (caleb.epstein_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-21 19:10:22

On 4/21/05, Rene Rivera <grafik.list_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Fernando Cacciola wrote:
>
> > FWIW we've been using SVN for a year and a half now and we've never had a
> > merge problem.
> 
> That's good to hear. Since I've only used SVN on that job I'd suspect my
> problems could be related to the way the repository was used, or misused
> as the case may be. Although there is a documented deficiency with SVN
> not using the branch and revision history to do the merge.

But CVS is just as bad if not worse in this regard, unless you lay
down tags everywhere.  Or if you use CVSNT, which is the only
open-source tool I've encountered that supports history sensitive
merging.

As large projects are finding out (gcc, Mono), having tons of branches
and tags slows down CVS a great deal after a while.  Merging is not
history sensitive in SVN nor is it in CVS, so you must follow best
practices to be able to merge to/from a branch more than once
successfully.  In CVS this means tagging like a maniac, and in SVN its
a simple matter of leaving an explicit comment about your merge point
when you do merge code.

-- 
Caleb Epstein
caleb dot epstein at gmail dot com