This is a major issue - much more than a bug!!!

Hi All,

I don't know how to say this except bluntly!!
Sorry if I step on some toes, but I am most unhappy right now.
In grumbling around, this issue has bitten more people than just me, although I may have the most severe repercussions from this issue.
To be fair, I do not know if it is an SVN issue or a Tortoise issue. For this grumble, I'll consider them as the same culprit, called it.
If you tell me to grumble to SVN, I'll do so!!!

In my current project, I created myBranch a long time ago. I am working on some independent code which doesn't require accessing the other developer's code. The other developers have branched and merged several times in the meantime. Their current branch is different from the original branch from which I created myBranch. Also, their code has been severely reorganized, with many folders removed and others added.

I am now ready to merge myBranch back to theirBranch which, as I said, is different from theOriginalBranch.

I first wanted to merge theirBranch to myBranch, to resolve any code conflicts and make the merge from myBranch to theirBranch easier.

I have not even been able to get the merge from theirBranch to myBranch accomplished. I've spent 3 long hard frustrating days attempting to get the merge done. It is not happening.

The problem is that I am getting a huge number of treeConflicts which, AFAIK, are unresolveable.

1) I spent 3 hours the other day, walking down these tree conflicts and using the context menus, came up with a resolution to each conflict. At the end, I had a branch that was checked in and apparently up-to-date.

2) They made some changes to theirBranch. So I attempted to do another merge from theirBranch to myBranch. I got an equally daunting list of these treeConflicts.

3) I attempted to work my way through them but they never stabilized and I never got the second merge accomplished.

4) Now I have a broken myBranch and an unmergeable situation from theirBranch.

5) So I contacted our SVN gurus here and we spent 2-3 hours looking at the issues and their response was "We don't know what to do to resolve this." Aw, guys, thanks a lot.

6) My manager told me about a "trick" that works. Except he is reintegrating from the branch back to the trunk. I'm going the other way.

7) So, all I have left is to copy the head of myBranch into a newBranch from theirBranch. But then I've lost all of my history. Not good.

Anyway, I'm not a happy camper right now!

The issue apparently surrounds all of these folder changes they made in theirBranch. It also appears that it "forgot" the common ancestor with all of the branching/merging that has occurred in theirBranch.

There has got to be a way for it to be able to do something with these TreeConflicts. In reading the documentation, it gives a horrible number of scenarios which cause those treeConflicts and what to do in each case, but it's MergeDialog doesn't tell you which of those Scenarios it is seeing, nor do the dialogs lead you through the appropriate steps necessary to resolve the treeConflict nor do the dialogs match anything in the helpFiles.

So I read the help files and try to follow them in the dialogs and get nowhere. Nor do our SVN gurus! So I conclude that it is extremely broken on doing anything but the simplest merge.

I am most unhappy about this! :{

I argued to our group that we should move to SVN. Now I'm sitting here with egg on my face with my peers.

I do not like this.

I come from a ClearCase background. ClearCase 1) versioned the folders along with the files inside the folders and 2) allowed the user to actually edit the contents of the folders and 3) allowed you to say "I want this file from this branch in this folder from that branch." In addition, ClearCase has a 3-way merge that you can choose from: Branch1, Branch2 and CommonAncestor. You can choose to use any one of the three or to edit the contents to be what you want it to be.

This allowed the user to resolve these types of conflicts.

It needs a similar methodology.

This can be accomplished. ClearCase proves that.

Y'all need to do something about this non-sense, so that a user can actually get done what the user needs to get done, without grief, pain, frustration and irritation.

Right now I have all of four of them!!

If I were asked today to recommend a versioning tool, it would NOT be a Tortoise/SVN combination.

Sorry to be blunt, but that is the way it is.

-Ralph Owens
Ro6690_at_att.com<mailto:Ro6690_at_att.com>

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Received on 2013-02-27 22:11:16 CET