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Re: Subversion vs. Clear Case

From: Russ Brown <pickscrape_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2005-07-05 13:56:00 CEST

Tor Ringstad wrote:
>>>- Dynamic views
>>>- Good branch/merge support (a lot better than e.g. Subversion)
>>>- ClearMake
>>
>>I'd appreciate if you could explain a bit more what each of those
>>are (or in case of branch/merge) how are their better than that of
>>SVN.
>
>
> I'm not going to be able to give a good explanation here, each bullet
> is really a huge topic.
>
> 1) Dynamic views
>
> I think a good way to see a "dynamic view" is as a "dynamic working
> copy", transparently implemented as a regular file system. Handling
> working copies in this way has some very deep implications, and as far
> as I know this is an absolutely unique feature in CC. One particular
> consequence is no explicit checkout. "Working copies" (views) are
> created instantaneously and use no disk space.
>

Sounds a bit like using Subversion with davfs: that allows you to mount
a subversion repository to a local path, and if you enable autocommit on
the server side it will transparently commit any changes for you. I'm
using it myself for personal file (it's not suitable for source
management though).

> 2) Branch/merge support
>
> CC supports multiple merges between branches and merge of directory
> changes (move/rename), Subversion does not.
>
> 3) ClearMake
>
> Some keywords are dependency tracking and build avoidance (wink-in).
>
>
>>Could any of those achived by using SVK or some other 3rd party
>>tool?
>
>
> SVK might have better branch/merge support, but I'm not sure. I'm not
> aware of any other 3rd party tools that might help you achieve this.
>

I'd argue that Subversion's *branching* can't be bettered. It's an O(1)
operation which takes up practically no space. Branches can be stored in
 whatever folder structure you fancy. I really don't see how it can be
bettered, though I'm open to arguments as to its shortcomings.

The problem is in merge support (different to branching). SVK *does*
have better merge support than Subversion. Merging between branches is
done without having to refer to revision numbers at all: svk takes care
of the merge-tracking for you. Commands like pull and push make it
childsplay to keep a branch in sync with the trunk (pull) and to merge
changes onto the trunk (push).

>
>>Are there plans in SVN to include those features ?
>
>
> Better branch/merge support is a stated "medium term" goal in
> Subversion, as per their web page.
>
>
> - Tor Ringstad -
>
>
>
>
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Received on Tue Jul 5 14:16:31 2005

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