Transitioning from Rational Apex version control?

We currently use an IDE with a built in version control system (Rational
Apex). Note that though this is a Rational (IBM now) tool it is not
built on Clearcase.

While there are many things that SVN has that Apex does not, there
appears to be at least one important (to me) feature that I do not see
any good way simulate with SVN.

The basic idea (in SVN terms I think) is that Apex allows one to create
branches where most of the files are not really branches at all but are
still connected to the trunk. This can be used for lots of things. We
use it to handle

1) A large common code base that serves all customers but where a very
small number of files need to be forever branched to support different
customers.

and

2) Sort of a version control system "preprocessor" approach where
certain files need different contents based on the target platform (e.g.
an embedded OS v.s. a host OS).

I don't see any way of getting similar functionality or workflow in SVN
without lots of branching/merging to keep the "common" files in sync.

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Received on Mon Feb 28 05:04:24 2005