On 06.04.2010 12:18, Stefan Sperling wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 06, 2010 at 07:04:42AM +0200, Branko Čibej wrote:
>
>> On 05.04.2010 17:06, Stefan Sperling wrote:
>>
>>> An idea we're playing with to mitigate this problem is having designated
>>> properties in the svn: namespace which allow users to tell svn what their
>>> branching/merging strategy is.
>>>
>> (Thereby making things even more flexible, complex, and error-prone.)
>> In the light of previous discussions
>>
> I'd like to read them. Can you provide pointers?
>
I was referring to previous posts to this thread.
>> this is a less than optimal way of
>> making branching and merging easier for users. This is another feature
>> that would probably only be used by perhaps 1% of all users ...
>>
> Do you mean "used" or "configured" (as in setting the props)?
>
I mean "configured" but "used" works just as well because that's where
the complexity and maintenance burden comes in. Such properties are
pretty much equivalent to mergeinfo in the sense that they control the
behaviour of the client and server, and would have the same tendency
towards complex edge cases and unexpected usage scenarios.
>> whilst
>> most people just want to say, "create a branch" and "merge from that
>> branch" and be done with it.
>>
> Yes, they do.
>
> But how else would you make it easier to use before going 2.0
> (in the "2.0" sense of writing a new centralised SCM from scratch)?
> The flexibility^Wcomplexity is there now, and we have set for
> ourselves the goal to continue supporting it (for better or worse).
>
I've proposed before that we introduce proper branches, and gradually
phase out support for the copy-is-branch paradigm, for example, by not
supporting smart merging between directory copies but only between
branches. There is no good reason to continue to support every feature
we've ever had, assuming we provide a migration path *and* publish a
roadmap so that users can be made aware of such upcoming changes.
-- Brane
Received on 2010-04-06 22:23:27 CEST