Scott Palmer <scott.palmer@2connected.org> wrote on 10/22/2004 03:18:53
PM:
>
> On Oct 22, 2004, at 2:31 PM, John Szakmeister wrote:
>
> > On Friday 22 October 2004 13:57, Scott Palmer wrote:
> >
> >> For ease of use the svn copy command could have a flag to say I'm
> >> making a "tag" copy, and the "tag" property would automatically be
set
> >> on the copy.
> >
> > What's so hard about svn cp http://.../trunk http://.../tags/1.0?
>
> I'm not suggesting anything is hard about it. I'm simply saying that
> it does not result in a (reasonably) immutable copy.. which is *my*
> definition of a tag, and there are obviously many others that have an
> equivalent definition of what a tag should be.
I am not aware of any version control tool that does not provide some way
to alter tags after the fact. Therefore the immutable argument is a bit
over stated. While some of the higher end commercial tools track changes
made to tags, most of the common ones like CVS, PVCS and VSS do not.
Therefore, if anything there are some advantages to Subversion in that any
changes are tracked, and since you have the global revision number, can be
reverted.
Personally, I do not want immutable tags -- I like being able to make
minor updates. As an example, if you look at the tags for Subversion
itself, when they make a tag it is usually followed by at least 1 commit
to svn_version.h to update the release information for the tarball. That
being said, I can understand why some people want this feature. What I
think is the main issue is that it would be so easy for someone to commit
changes to a tag by accident, without the tool doing anything to help.
Currently, this can be solved by using Apache and mod_authz_svn or by
using hook scripts. I know that the developers have talked a lot about
adding ACL's into the repository layer itself and I think this feature
will likely come in a reasonable time frame. When that feature exists, I
think it will be relatively easy to define permission's in the repository
itself that create the "immutability" feature that some desire. Until
then, you have to use hooks. I personally see no more problem using hooks
for something like this, then I do with using hooks to send commit emails.
BTW, if you do the latter a nice benefit is you would be emailed if
someone committed to a tags folder. So, in the event of an accident, the
change can be reverted.
I think a nice idea might be to setup a "repository" of sample hooks that
implement these ideas. There are some in the svn repository itself, but I
am thinking something more "web-based" with accompanying documentation
etc.. Kind of a Subversion "hooks" community. Maybe this would be a good
Wiki-style app? It would also be nice if some of the hooks were then
implemented in different languages so we did not all have to become Perl
experts to use them.
Anyway, this issue has been beaten to death in the last couple of months,
so that is all I have to say.
Thanks
Mark
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Received on Fri Oct 22 21:44:04 2004