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

From: Caleb Epstein (caleb.epstein_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-26 08:53:28

On 4/26/05, Vladimir Prus <ghost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> So, it looks like the comparison page is either out-of-date, or incorrect.

I agree.  My original point about CVSNT was that it supports "Merge
Points", which makes doing multiple merges between branches a lot less
painful than it is with CVS or even SVN.

I did some testing of CVSNT a week or so ago, and this is indeed a
nice feature, but I did encounter some instabilities in the tool.  The
rename support seems especially buggy and even warns you when you use
it:

"cvsnt rename: Warning: rename is still experimental and may not
behave as you would expect"

I was even able to get the client to dump core; not very confidence-inducing.

If you have a Windows-heavy user base and a legacy CVS environment,
CVSNT may be the right tool.  However I don't think all of the added
authentication and other functionality is pertinent for Boost,
especially if the server-side will be running on a UNIX box.

I believe SVN has all of the features that make it a CVS killer.  The
branch/merge semantics are a lot less cumbersome than with CVS,
particularly when you take into account all of the tagging required to
make CVS branch/merge manageable.  When combined with a little bit of
procedure (e.g. noting where merges happen in your commit comments),
the lack of a history-sensitive merge is hardly a showstopper. 
Presumably a future release of SVN will include this feature (it is a
medium-term goal on their roadmap) and then you won't even need to
worry about those merge-point comments.

I say full-speed ahead into SVN-land!

-- 
Caleb Epstein
caleb dot epstein at gmail dot com