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Confusing wording in manual [was: Binary diff]

From: Ulrich Eckhardt <eckhardt_at_satorlaser.com>
Date: 2005-07-06 10:10:38 CEST

> In the most general sense, Subversion handles binary files more
> gracefully than CVS does. Because CVS uses RCS, it can only store
> successive full copies of a changing binary file. But internally,
> Subversion expresses differences between files using a
> binary-differencing algorithm, ...

Suggestions:
  Subversion on the other hand expresses differences between files...
  However, Subversion expresses differences between files...

There is no need to mention 'internally', as this is clearly about
Subversion's internals.

> ...regardless of whether they contain
> textual or binary data. That means that all files are stored
> differentially (compressed) in the repository, and small differences are
> always sent over the network.

What is the meaning of the last part of this? Should that rather be "..., and
only the small differences are sent over the network[when synchronizing]."?
Also why does this suddenly jump to the network? All the time it only talked
about disk storage. Maybe one should start off mentioning that this diffing
not only applies to disk storage but also to network transfers, and that
CVS/RCS are for that very reason both bandwidth intensive and disk intensive
for binary files.
Disclaimer: I don't know sure which algorithms CVS/RCS apply for textual
files, neither for storage nor for network transfer. Maybe that should be
stated there, too, to then explain what Subversion does better and how.

cheers

Uli

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Received on Wed Jul 6 10:12:53 2005

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