Who here works on Subversion?

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Mon, Oct 03, 2005 at 12:18:42PM -0400, Kevin D. Clark wrote:
> 
> Christopher Schmidt writes:
> 
> > Except in the situation where main and dev are both altered in a
> > conflicting way, Subversion doesn't offer any smart techniques for
> > merging that I'm aware of.
> 
> The only <thing> that I've ever seen that was smart enough to resolve
> overlapping conflicting changes as an actual human being.

I think that's why I'm confused as to why the OP expected subversion to
do this - and how, exactly. but I figured I was just misunderstanding,
thus the couching in cautious terms. I really don't know enough about
revision control merging to speak much to it. (See below)

> > This is why I only use revision control as backup + examining diffs to
> > give to the boss when they ask "What the heck did you spend 2 hours on?"
> > :)
> 
> Hmm.  I use revision control systems as a tool and I depend on them to
> do work for me.  This is one of my most important tools.  If I can't
> trust this tool, I either replace it or complain bitterly.  You can't
> build quality houses with broken levels and bent squares and dull
> saws... 

Almost exclusively I work on my own projects, or on my own subsection of
a project which needs no interaction with other portions. I have never
worked in a situation where revision control did anything more than
ensure that I was compiling against the latest version of a file.

I personally have no need for complicated branch conflict resolution or
merging -- I've never merged my code against a moving target. (I suppose
that's not entirely true: when I was volunteering for LiveJournal, I
submitted patches against a moving target occasionally, but given that
only about 1 in 25 of the patches I submitted got accepted, I usually
just let the moving target ones bitrot.) 

For me, revision control is helpful, but not a neccesary part of
anything I do: but I've saved my ass more than once by recovering an
accidentally deleted file from the RCS I'm using, so I use it in almost
everything I do.

-- 
Christopher Schmidt