On Oct 4, 2006, at 20:13, Steve Martin wrote:
> The last contract I was on, we needed an SCM system. I chose CVS,
> but the developers decided they wanted to try Subversion.
>
> So.. we went with subversion. We went with it, *I* dealt with the
> head aches, the fact that you can't make a simple commit without
> changing the version # of the entire repo,
> and so many of the other complaints / issues I've seen on this list.
>
> My new job also required an SCM system, and I set CVS up in half
> the time, without having to explain why the rev # of the entire
> repo and every file checked out changes during a commit, no
> "malformed this or that" errors,
> no issues with apache authentication, no issues with svn -d, nothing.
>
> It worked perfectly like CVS always has, which subversion never has
> for me or a lot of the others on this list.
>
> So... all I'm asking is, what is so great about subversion that
> would make people want to give up the tried and tested SCM system,
> for something that seemingly has so many problems?
>
> And the previous SVN setup was on RHEL 4, and the current CVS setup
> is on RHEL 4. I'm certainly not a noob to this kind of thing, and
> did RTFM before setting subversion up, but it never worked for us
> like advertised, while CVS worked exactly like CVS always does...
> import a file, only IT'S rev changes, not everything in that dir or
> the entire repo...
As a CM (Configuration Management) weenie, I loathe CVS because of how
slow the branching and labeling is. At my last company, it took close
to an hour to branch/label the code, which made effective CM
impractical. With subversion I can branch and label in under a second
for a tree containing thousands of files.
Subversion also has directory versioning, which means you can now record
and *undo* file renames or moves. Atomic commits are very nice. It can
also handle empty directories. Subversion treats every file as binary,
so none of that -kb nonsense. There are no standard procedures that
involve hacking the back end repository. CVS is becoming more and more
out-dated and needs to go away.
The biggest difficulty with Subversion is the paradigm shift. Coming
from 7 years of ClearCase, the One Revision Number thing took a lot of
getting used to. That and the lack of a "proper" version tree.
Generally speaking, as a CM weenie, and after a bit of time, I find
Subversion's tree based paradigm to be a great improvement over the
file-centric paradigm started with RCS. It just takes a bit of getting
used to.
The biggest flaw with Subversion right now is the lack of proper merge
tracking.
*****
The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential, proprietary, and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from all computers. GA622
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@subversion.tigris.org
Received on Thu Oct 5 16:21:10 2006