Re: Bundles Re: SVN, .SVN, and other meta-data directorys

> We shouldn't design
> to compensate for a tool that randomly destroys data it doesn't
> recognize; instead, the tool should be fixed.

Up to a point I agree, but it's also worth having pity for the poor sods who
have to work on benighted machines like macintoshes... :-)

> Even storing all the data in one SVN/ dir at the top of the tree
> wouldn't solve this problem, anyway -- what if you used one of those
> editors on the root of the working tree? The SVN/ dir would still get
> zapped. So the problem might not occur as often, but it would still
> happen sometimes.

This design philosophy is busted. There are many problems where the rate of
incidence can be reduced even though the problem cannot be fixed perfectly
or cannot be fixed perfectly yet. I don't have a strong opinion on the
directory issue. I can think of other scenarios where the per-directory
structure is advantageous in addition to the ones that have already been
mentioned.

I want to suggest a different guideline for adopting "partial" solutions: if
the partial solution can be adopted at acceptable cost and without
preventing a compatible total solution later, it shouldn't be discarded out
of hand as a bad idea.

Just an opinion.
Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:07 2006