Re: What do you Hate about Subversion?

Erik Hemdal wrote:

> If I'm following the quotations here, I think Les's point is that he is not
> concerned with representation changes. He doesn't care about, and doesn't want
> to see, tweaks to line endings considered as "content changes".

It's not that I don't care. Instead I do know that by definition of
text, the line ending representation does not constitute a content
change and I want the system to be intelligent about the way it is
handled so the real content change is understandable. The point of text
is that it has meaning to humans. I want to see the changes in a
humanly understandable form. No one is arguing this point, though.
Subversion does (and must, to be useful as a cross-platform tool) handle
the basics in this respect. The part being discussed is whether this
could be done better.

> I think that if you change any byte in the file, you've changed the file and
> Subversion should not be in the business of changing any files. I agree with
> Duncan that simple reversible changes for convenience might be the exception.

Managing meaningless binary data streams is sometimes useful too, but it
is a different thing.

> Any change, even to representation, is important. Line endings, after all, are
> part of the contents of the file even if they don't add any semantic meaning to
> the text you typed in. Just because I didn't change any words in the file
> doesn't mean I didn't change the file.

Then it isn't text.

> I am sympathetic to the argument that I think Les is making. It's terribly
> annoying to dig through dozens or hundreds of changes simply for linefeeds,
> tabs or spaces. That can get really ugly and I hate it too.

The question should be whether the computer is working for you, or are
you working to deal with the way the computer wants to store things. I
like my tools to make my work easier.

> But I believe that sorting through those differences (or using a diff tool that
> hides them for you) is better than trying to have Subversion manage it.

Subversion has to manage it to be useful in a cross platform
environment. We are just talking about how well it could manage it.

> If Subversion did, then I could have to explain why a file that looks the same
> because of "forgiveness" on line endings has different checksum or size from
> the identical file outside of Subversion. When all this matches up, I have
> external evidence that Subversion can be trusted. If it doesn't, I have to
> start explaining eol-style and the difference between "content" vs. "contents".

No, you just have to understand the concept of 'text' and that the same
text can be represented in different ways. If you talk about 'files'
and meaningless content, you have binaries, not text.

> Sorry to continue the thread, but this is a really important subject for me.

If you want binary handling and more work for yourself in a mixed
environment, that option is always available.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell@gmail.com
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