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Re: VSS File Sharing

From: Nathan Kidd <nathan-svn_at_spicycrypto.ca>
Date: 2006-11-15 23:52:34 CET

Thomas Wicklund wrote:
> I'm not aware of a good SVN replacement for VSS shared files.

And I'm not aware of a good use of VSS sharing in the first place.[1]

Well, I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek -- certainly people can use it
to conveniently share files. But frankly from a SCM perspective, and
having gone through the whole "what do we do with these shared files"
problem when we converted from VSS to SVN, I posit that in software
development the concept of checking in a file in one location and other
locations silently getting changed too is a Bad Thing. I further posit
that every shared file is a kludge that should be fixed with a
project-independent lib, or similar concept. You can still get the
benefit of shared code without the inherent surprise/fragility VSS
sharing adds to a project development/SCM.[2]

-Nathan

_____________________________________
[1] Please note I'm speaking in the context of robust software
development where stable branches, tags/labels, are integral. Some
other type of short-lived content may not have the same drawbacks.

[2] "What surprise/fragility? I've been using it for years without
problem!" Maybe you have. Maybe your developers never introduce bugs in
new code. Maybe they always can remember which projects are using a
shared file. Maybe you don't maintain many old-but-stable branches. But
if you're concerned with stable, reproducable builds there are too many
maybes in there.

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Received on Wed Nov 15 23:51:32 2006

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