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Re: import files preserving timestamps

From: Erik Huelsmann <ehuels_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2008 09:53:54 +0200

On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 9:43 AM, Liviu <lab2k1_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: "Erik Huelsmann" Sent: Sat, June 07, 2008 2:25 AM
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 9:22 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>>>
>>> On Jun 7, 2008, at 00:22, Mark Reibert wrote:
>>>
>>>> Perhaps there is some other rationale for preserving timestamps with
>>>> which I am not familiar.
>>>
>>> It is not for the version control system to decide what metadata
>>> about my files is expendable.
>>
>> But a portable version control system may also not be in the position
>> to version your meta data sanely between operating systems: [...]
>
> I'd think more OSs support file timestamps than symlinks.
> It would be up to the particular client to know its platform, and act as
> sanely as possible within its limitations.

Right. But nobody was motivated to implement tracking of timestamps
enough to implement it (whereas someone did for symlinks...). And in
the current situation - where we intend to rewrite the working copy
code - I suggest nobody starts that work within the current framework.

In a previous mail you suggested there are no arguments *not* to
include versioning of timestamps in your vc system (i believe), but I
think there are plenty, which is exactly why it hasn't been done. It's
a hairy topic:

- Do you also commit a file if the timestamp changes? Some say 'of
course', others say 'never'

With which I mean: the feature isn't all that clearly defined and in
fact may be a request for many different features (supporting many
different use-cases).

- It complicates the code in your VC system.

Complexity is the enemy of stability. You should want the latter to be
the top priority of your VC.

- Time spent on developing this feature will reduce time spent on others

I think Subversion has enough feature requests outstanding which are
generally considered 'more important' than versioning of timestamps.

Bye,

Erik.

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Received on 2008-06-07 09:54:15 CEST

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