Re: Autoexpanding ZIP archives?

Jim Blandy wrote:
> It's true that this was the original design strategy for Subversion.
> But that's not a absolute defense. The use case being suggested here
> --- storing OO files and getting reasonable repository space usage ---
> is reasonable.

What about other composite file types and the "I want to store .tar.gz
files efficiently" argument? Where do you draw the line on embedding
application file format specific routines in a general purpose tool like
Subversion. Why is this Subversion's problem to begin with and why
should _we_ solve it?

Personally, I think it would much more appropriate to alter OpenOffice
to either:

1) provide a Save Uncompressed - instead of creating a custom zip file
it creates a directory containing the components (this should be a snap,
but I haven't looked at the OO codebase, so it might be a nightmare
instead);

or better yet:

2) write a plugin to store OO documents in a Subversion repository
directly (again as a collection/folder of files) - users wanting to send
the file to someone else would "Save As" in the current zipped format.

I think this is decidedly "Not Our Problem" because of the strong
possibility of function creep.

John

p.s. I'm pretty sure that M$loth is talking about making the next Word
file format be a composite zip file. Ughhh...

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4501 Forbes Boulevard
Suite H
Lanham, MD  20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5748
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