On Sun, 11 Feb 2007, Max Bowsher wrote:
> Ionel GARDAIS wrote:
> > ZeroConf ( http://www.zeroconf.org/ ) is also
> > commercially known as 'Bonjour' (formerly
> > 'RendezVous') by Apple.
> >
> > It allows 'services' to announce themselves to the
> > world.
> > Most new printers include this so computers are able
> > to 'discover' their brand/model/capabilities
> > automatically.
>
> There's a fundamental difference between printers and Subversion
> repositories. For a printer to be useful, it only needs to be near to
> you, and support the appropriate capabilities (B&W/colour, resolution,
> etc.) that you need. For a Subversion repository to be useful, it needs
> to actually be the specific one you are looking for.
Yes. And help finding it is always welcome, especially to newcomers
to an organization (e.g. software development shop).
> > Applied to SVN, compatible clients will list available
> > repositories through an easy-to-remember name, hidding
> > the real full path.
>
> But only within some sort of local organization scope... in which case,
> a website or wiki page describing the available repositories could be
> just as, if not more, useful.
How do you know where to find the wiki?
> > An administrator could then move servers around, split
> > repositories on different servers without notifying
> > the users each time.
>
> This doesn't seem so very different to what you could already do with
> DNS CNAMEs.
Agreed.
Of course, you have to know what the CNAME is in the first place.
> > In a 1projet/1repos scheme, adding a repository for a
> > project will list it automatically for an easier user
> > access.
>
> Yet, you'd still need to tell the users about the creation of the
> project, so you might as well just tell them about the repository URL at
> that time.
This is the type of information which is often slow to be communicated
to the chain of people who need to know. The person announcing the
kick-off of a project is, in my experience, typically not the person
creating the repository. Also typically, a repository is quite likely
not to exist at this point in a project.
> I feel unconvinced that Version Control System repositories are a
> resource suited to zeroconf-style discovery. Are there any VCSes in
> existence which employ such a feature?
I don't know of any.
This is a really valid use case for small to medium-sized
organizations using version control (e.g. doing software development,
content management, etc.). It doesn't seem like it would scale
gracefully as repository proliferation grew.
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Received on Thu Feb 22 01:27:52 2007