"Jeff Smith" <jsmith@robotronics.com> wrote in message
news:200701120946.07641.jsmith@robotronics.com...
> On Friday 12 January 2007 02:31, B. Smith-Mannschott wrote:
> > For example, we have a number of non-technical users of
> > subversion who were confused by the term "check out". To them it
> > implied that they'd "checked out" the file as one might a book in a
> > library and hence no one else could possibly be editing it as long
> > as they had it "checked out". "Download" or "get working copy",
> > might have been better terms, but "check out" it is. Convention
> > wins again.
>
> Good example, except that the term "check out" still applies just as
> well as back when the repository only allowed one checkout at a time.
>
> It's just that back then, the public library had only one copy. Now
> they have multiple copies available. Of course the public library
> with books was never designed to handle people writing in the books,
> so that example is no longer relevant. It doesn't change the original
> meaning of "check out", meaning basically to be registered, and take
> a copy home. Personally, I think svn should still track who checked
> what out when, but it apparently does not.
The reason it doesn't is the same reason why this analogy fails: there is no
requirement that the user 'bring it back' having checked it out. I often
create temporary working copies to test someone's modifications before
merging, or for various other reasons that don't result in a commit and the
working copy is subsequently deleted.
If you want to liken it to a library, then it is a library that we can't
take the books out of, but which has a free photocopier.
- Mark Clements
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Received on Fri Jan 12 18:10:31 2007