Re: Sparse Directories vs Externals

Here is a quote from my co-worker in response to me asking "Why do you feel
externals are so bad?":

> Because relative externals are only relative to the repository. They still
> need to be hand modified in order to branch or tag properly.

> With externals your commit can fail after an external has been committed or
> vice versa. This can and has in the past (at method) resulted in partial
> check-ins. Externals also caused revision numbers in the repository to be
> additionally incremented on each check in once for each external. This makes
> it harder to track down and/or revert changes. I'm not sure if relative
> externals solve these problems or not.

> Externals make working with subversion harder. Externals make it noticeably
> slower. It takes me 35 seconds to do an update when I am up to date. Viewing
> the history of the checkout is also more difficult as revisions to the
> externals do not show up when showing the log of your working copy root
> folder.

> I'd go as far as to say having externals in the primary part of the
> repository should be a subversion anti-pattern.

------------------------------------------------------
http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=1065&dsMessageId=1209804

To unsubscribe from this discussion, e-mail: [users-unsubscribe_at_subversion.tigris.org].
Received on 2009-02-22 17:41:22 CET