Chris Leishman <chris@leishman.org> writes:
> I've been following the discussion/planning around relative
> svn:externals:
>
> http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1336
>
> There is also an associated issue requesting that transactional commits
> follow relative externals:
>
> http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2402
>
> Now, I have a thought which I'm throwing into the mix. What if, instead
> of allowing repository relative externals to be included in
> svn:externals, there was instead another way of creating a 'link' within
> the repository.
>
> This could be facilitated via a different property (eg. svn:links) or
> via a more integrated mechanism such as a new 'link' command. It would
> operate in a similar manner to a copy, except that it would continue to
> track changes made to the resource in other locations.
>
> This would implicitly resolve issue 2402, and solve the issue in 1336 of
> exactly how to describe a repository relative location with a URI.
>
> I'm not well versed on the internal structure of subversion, but I
> imagine each resource is identified uniquely within the repository (via
> the UUID), so it may be possible to the same UUID present in more than
> one directory entry - or something along those lines.
>
> There are arguments against using such a mechanism, mostly from a source
> management perspective (eg. a change in one location, whilst tested, may
> break code in another place due to the shared nature of the file). But
> I think it would be the option of the user to make use of this or not -
> and other source management tools provide just such a feature.
>
> Thoughts?
Well, my initial reaction is: neat idea, but this specification barely
scratches the tip of the beak of a penguin standing on the tip of the
iceberg. Designing such a feature would require a lot of discussion &
thought; it will turn out to be made almost entirely of edge cases. I
personally don't have time to work on it, unfortunately. If you can
find developers who do, then it may go somewhere. But please note
that there are always hundreds of ideas floating around. Most will
never get implemented. It's not because they're bad, it's just
because there are always more ideas than hands and heads to code them.
Best,
-Karl
--
www.collab.net <> CollabNet | Distributed Development On Demand
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Received on Tue Sep 20 04:58:44 2005