suggestions for CVS use

Jason Stephenson jason at sigio.com
Thu May 8 12:46:40 EDT 2003


Yipe! Sorry, Paul, you're getting this twice. I meant to send it to the 
list, too.

pll at lanminds.com wrote:
> Ayup!  A couple of jobs ago the group I supported 
> was doing 'main-line' development.  No private branches or anything.  
> They'd check out a view and keep files locked for months at a time.

I work that way in CVS all the time, particularly when I worked on KDE.
I'd do all my work on the HEAD branch and run HEAD branch software for
my daily use, so I'd get really frustrated when some chuff in Europe
would commit some code that didn't compile way off in some other module,
and usually just before he'd go to bed, too. I actually spent a good
deal of my time fixing compile problems. I'd usually update my working
copy before each compile and commit when I had something that worked
(i.e. every couple days). Of course, CVS doesn't lock files when you
check out, so there has to be coordination among developers to avoid
conflicts.

Conflicts were rare when I was helping out with KMail, but they did
occur occasionally. Usually, a couple quick emails would get things
resolved in an hour or two.

I also have my own CVS version of webalizer where I've made some
modifications. I have all of Brad's original code and any new changes in
a vendor branch, and I keep my version in the main branch. When I want
something that he's added, I get his new code, add it to the vendor
branch and then merge it into my main branch. I've really not done much
with webalizer lately, as I was thinking of writing an "interactive"
replacement with some extra features.

Branches are your friends.

I think I'm going to look into Subversion some more. I'm intrigued to
know exactly what deficiencies of CVS the developers are hoping to fix.
Most of the stuff I saw on a quick scan of the Subversion site had to do
with performance.





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