Re: Newbie questions: How to check out just one file, etc.

On Jan 23, 2005, at 1:27 PM, Carole E Mah wrote:
>
> I'm thinking we should just stick with RCS until Subversion makes more
> sense. If the -N thing is broken, Subversion's pretty useless to me.
>

I'm not sure why this is a showstopper for you... it isn't for most of
the world. I suspect you have some very strong preconceptions about
"how one should work".

When using systems like RCS, the model is usually:

     - grab only what I need and lock it
     - change things
     - put it back and unlock it

It's like checking books out of a public library and returning them.

With Subversion, the working model is very different. Everyone
duplicates the entire library (or at least whole departments) to their
local workspace. It's time-consuming, but it's only done exactly once.
  Then everybody works in parallel, constantly editing, committing, and
updating. There's no locking, and there's no 'grabbing and putting
back'... everybody has a copy of everything, all the time.

(CVS is very much the same way, though it does have a non-broken -N
switch, so people can sort of emulate the RCS model.)

Is this a different model? Yes. Does it work well? Yes. Is it a
showstopper for your team, because it's different? Only if you want it
to be. In general, adopting a version control system means changing
your work patterns. You need to be ready to do that if you switch from
RCS to *any* new system.

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Received on Sun Jan 23 20:46:55 2005