Re: RFC: Standardizing a 'svn:branch' (boolean) property

On 16.07.2012 19:51, Bert Huijben wrote:
> I'm not saying directories aren't branches. I'm just suggesting that
> we give tools a hint to what directories are used as branches.

I said that directories /aren't/ branches. :)

> And I'm not alone in this wish. Subclipse and at least one other client already have their own marking system. (I think they standardized that property well before or around when we introduced merge tracking in Subversion). With the inherited properties work we will also finally have a standard api to just retrieve the information with one mostly fixed-time operation.

This appears to be a case where one solution can never solve all the
extant use-cases. If you introduce such a property and, e.g., map
Subclipse's functionality onto it, you're going to cause trouble for a
bunch of other users.

Besides, I really don't like this "design by example" or "design by
so-and-so has it" approach. We've done that in the past (changesets,
anyone?) and the results turned out to be less than widely useful.
Please describe the set of use cases you want to address, propose how
you think this new property can solve them, and at the very least,
explain how the solution will affect: a) the command-line client, b)
every other client, c) branching and merging, d) sparse checkouts, e)
externals. And explore other usage models than the one you have in mind
and think about how the proposed change will affect them.

Like it or not, Subversion has a complex data model and many features
that make edge cases where at first you wouldn't expect them. As a case
in point, consider that we've been doing merge tracking for more than 6
years and /still/ haven't got it right, and it'll take at least another
year to really make merging work the way it should. And that's not for
lack of trying; it's simply the result of the data model being more
complex than even the authors imagined.

BTW, I have no idea how inherited properties have any bearing on this
discussion. Surely you're not advocating to make svn:branch inherited,
without even knowing what the semantics of inherited properties is going
to be?

-- Brane

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