On Nov 26, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Ben Collins-Sussman wrote:
> I agree that the merge-tracking will not only make basic
> feature-branches trivial, but also "big mess of branches with lots of
> random cherrypicking" much easier to manage as well. The thing is,
> I'm not sure how to present the latter scenario in the book chapter
> without completely overwhelming the reader. I mean, I suppose I can
> talk about the scenario in the abstract, but it won't be more than a
> paragraph or two.
The problem here seems to be that you've leapt from a simple,
structured case to a complete absence of pattern or structure. That,
certainly, would be hard to describe sensibly. But you're leaping
over well-known, widely experienced, fully structured territory. Of
course, it's more complicated than the simple cases, and those who
don't have the problem may not be able to follow the discussion. But
those who do have the problem will, at the end of your present
outline, feel horribly let down by the text and disappointed by the
implied limitations of the product. Fortunately, the product isn't
that limited. So the text needs to touch this.
I don't think you need the hand-holding, "Branching for Dummies,"
"When Harry Met Sally" treatment for this. You do need to warn off
the innocents before diving in, but you then can assume that those who
read on understand the problem, and are only looking for some
indication of how well Subversion solves it. And as of the last heart-
to-heart I had with dlr, the answer being "not entirely," you need
some warnings about what doesn't work (I believe "multi-path delta
elision" is not covered, for instance).
-==-
Jack Repenning
Chief Technology Officer
CollabNet, Inc.
8000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 600
Brisbane, California 94005
office: +1 650.228.2562
mobile: +1 408.835.8090
raindance: +1 877.326.2337, x844.7461
aim: jackrepenning
skype: jrepenning
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Received on Mon Nov 26 22:46:33 2007