On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:29:53AM +0100, Julian Foad wrote:
> Do we intend Subversion to be...
>
> (a) ... a system for versioning a set of files (and directories) which
> exist in your operating system's file system, able to store such a file
> and later retrieve it back into your filesystem almost exactly as it was
> there before;
>
> or
>
> (b) ... a system for versioning a set of files (and directories) which
> are arbitrary blobs of (text or binary) data with named properties
> attached, and to present these files into your OS filesystem for you to
> edit and use, and also to present them through a web browser interface
> and through other interfaces?
>
>
> I think the answer is that the original remit was firmly just (b), but
> several people want Subversion to be (a) as well as (b). We, the
> community of developers, have not clearly answered this question.
Yes. By natively supporting symlinks and svn:executable, we already
cater to the UNIX platform more than we should if we wanted to be
just (b).
> We need to recognise that if we try to be (a), we will never get there
> because the combinations of file naming rules, and meta-data, and
> special node types (sym-links, hard links, device files) across systems,
> and the portability behaviours that would enable Subversion to cope with
> them all in a sane way, are (both theoretically and practically)
> impossible to complete.
That is true. But still, by that argument we should all be using
wrapped clients on UNIX to version symlinks and exectutable bits.
It would be nice if we could, in the long term, support more
OS-specific features out of the box.
I wonder if the patch is the way to go.
I mean, where do we draw the line?
If we have svn:executable, why not have svn:appledouble?
This problem must be really old. I can't imagine that this argument
hasn't come up before. Wasn't some consensus about the validity of
such special properties reached somewhere in the past already?
Stefan
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe_at_subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help_at_subversion.tigris.org
Received on 2008-08-11 15:46:47 CEST