C. Michael Pilato wrote:
> I was thinking today about how Subversion offers all this flexibility in
> terms of branch creation ("it's just a copy of a directory!") but sometimes
> at the cost of some benefits you might otherwise get from a first-class
> branch object.
>
> Could a really, really simple solution help here? What if Subversion
> recognized a directory property (say, "svn:branch-root") as an indicator
> that that directory is the root of a branch (where by "branch", I mean "line
> of development", which includes trunk and tags)? Benefits could include:
>
> * the fact that the property would naturally get set on copies of that
> directory, ensuring that branches of the directory are annotated as
> such.
>
> * helping the client discourage commits of subsets of a branch.
>
> * helping the client warn users about merging at anything less than
> the branch level.
>
> * helping tools like ViewVC and Trac identify branches, and add UI
> goodness accordingly.
>
> It sounds too simple to be truly useful. What do others think?
>
That you then need an "svn branch" command to differentiate between
ordinary copies and actual branches, because you can't just always
blindly assume that a directory copy is in fact intended to be a branch.
Or even better, first-class branches in the repo. Makes for less user
confusion as to what's tree structure and what's branch structure. What
I've been proposing for years now. :)
-- Brane
P.S.: BTW, this proposal reminds me of the "really simple" idea that was
svn externals, it would "work just fine" until we could get real links
in the repository and such ...
------------------------------------------------------
http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=462&dsMessageId=2393019
Received on 2009-09-09 19:25:05 CEST