Karl Fogel <kfogel@galois.ch.collab.net>:
> Agree about the Bitkeeper thing. Excellent technology, unacceptable
> license. Sigh. :-(
What's he got that you don't? Offhand, it looks to me like you have
changesets and LODs covered fairly well but you're weaker than Bitkeeper
on the distributed-depositories front. Is that a fair summation, in your
view?
> Why is the design document being out of date a bad sign? It just
> means we're all busy coding :-).
It may also mean you're too busy coding to maintain a a coherent and
documented model of the architecture. Not that I'm saying this has
happened -- I don't know enough to judge that yet -- but the possibility
causes me concern.
> Note that "basic commits and updates" does not mean a drop-in CVS
> replacement. A lot of polishing and testing will have to happen
> before that, including completion of the CVS->SVN repository
> conversion program. End of May or mid-June would be more like it.
> You can help make it happen faster. :-) (You knew I was going to say
> that, didn't you?)
The migration tools will be important. I just got through telling Peter
Miller (the Aegis guy) this:
|> [W]hat influenced that decision? What would it have taken for you to
|> say ``hell, let's install this sucker and try it on a live project
|> for a few months''? Opportunity cost? Something else?
|
|Ah. *That* question I can answer. For me, it would take
|import-export tools that I believed in. That is, I'd try Aegis if I
|believed that there were a pair of tools that could import a RCS/CVS
|project into Aegis, and export an Aegis project to RCS/CVS, in such a
|way that RCS/CVS metadata tunnels through without loss. Not only
|that, the documentation would have to convince me this true by
|detailing the mapping exactly.
|
|Note: such a pair of tools need not necessarily handle all of CVS's
|weird edge cases -- but it would have to document everything the
|transformation breaks with accuracy and honesty.
|
|The biggest opportunity cost in switching to a system like Aegis is
|the fear that you won't be able to fall back to what you know if it
|turns out to be unsuitable or confining. If you nailed that, I'll bet
|your adoption rate would rocket.
> > (One way I *can* help directly is with document editing. I'm pretty
> > good with English, and it's the kind of task that can be done in small
> > pieces between coding runs.)
>
> Wow, that would be great. Any time you could spare for the docs would
> be most welcome. Of course, the more familiar you are with the state
> of the code the better, but whatever you can spare would help. It's
> not that we don't think the docs are important, it's just a matter of
> where it's most useful for people to allocate their time right now.
How do I get access? Are you CVSes, or should I just download a tarball
and ship back patches?
--
Eric S. Raymond
A ``decay in the social contract'' is detectable; there is a growing
feeling, particularly among middle-income taxpayers, that they are not
getting back, from society and government, their money's worth for
taxes paid. The tendency is for taxpayers to try to take more control
of their finances ..
-- IRS Strategic Plan, (May 1984)
Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:23 2006