"J. David Blackstone" <jxb9451@omega.uta.edu> writes:
> A picture really is worth a thousand words...
>
> I've been lurking on the subversion development list for a couple of
> months, now. I just checked out the new status document (Thanks, Ben!)
> and noticed the diagram taken from the design document. I've probably
> seen it before, but a lot more things make since now than did two months
> ago.
>
> I see two lines from "Repository Access Method" to "Subversion
> Filesystem," one of which goes through "Local Repository Access."
>
> I realize local repository access has been discussed a little bit in
> recent messages, but I was under the impression that the item "It is
> natively client-server, hence much more maintainable than CVS. (In CVS,
> the client-server protocol was added as an afterthought. This means that
> most new features have to be implemented twice, or at least more than
> once: code for the local case, and code for the client-server case.)"
> in the design document implied that there would be no local access to
> the repository -- everything would be funnelled through the network
> layer. I assumed that someone wanting access to a local repository
> would simply point their CVSROOT/SVNROOT at the machine they were
> working on.
>
> I realize local repository access has been relegated to a lower
> priority, but I wonder why even create it at all. It seems to me that
> it makes two access paths to the repository resulting in more work and
> more possibility of corrupted data.
Efficiency and debuggability. Since the client and repository
interfaces are very well-separated, local access really is a case of
just not using the network layer and doing everything else pretty much
the same. And it's useful to be able to test certain functionality
with and without networking, to isolate bugs. The bug will often be
present in both cirmcumstances, but it's a lot more convenient to use
GDB in the latter scenario. :-)
The extra work is not very great, as the code path for local access is
extremely short.
-K
Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:23 2006