Re: Switch to Subversion (!!!!!!!!!)

>>>>> "MJ" == MJ Ray <[email protected]> writes:

    MJ> Subversion is a lardball that doesn't solve the worst problems
    MJ> of CVS, is under a GPL-incompatible licence (so limiting
    MJ> integration possibilities) and is far harder to recover if its
    MJ> storage crashes.  

I must jump in here in defense of Subversion.  I've been using it at
home for three years, and at work for about two.  I've never had a
problem recovering it; I've never lost data.  I wonder if MJ is
thinking of the Berkeley DB backend, which is no longer the default;
it could indeed "wedge" when not properly configured.  (Such wedgitude
did not destroy data; it merely prevented the system from working
until it was unwedged).  The newer FSFS back end appears to be trouble
free.  (I spend a _lot_ of time on the #svn channel on
irc.freenode.net, so I think I have a fair idea of what people are
having trouble with.  FSFS DB recovery is not one of those things.)
                          
    MJ> If you hate CVS, you should hate subversion more.  It only
    MJ> adds changesets and shares or amplifies all the other
    MJ> drawbacks.

I honestly don't know why MJ would say that.  I've _never_ heard of
anyone who regretted moving from CVS to svn.

Plus, the subversion developers are the most generous and capable of
any Free Software project I've encountered.  They'll patiently answer
your questions via the mailing list or IRC.  The project is quite
active; they've made many releases since the initial one.

    MJ> Please can we switch to a next-generation revision control
    MJ> (such as one of the distributed ones), 

Now, that's a more legitimate issue: subversion certainly isn't
distributed, and is a terrible choice if you in fact do want a
distributed revision control system.  But before you switch to one,
I'd recommend that you look at
http://web.mit.edu/ghudson/thoughts/bitkeeper.whynot.  It's ostensibly
about bitkeeper, but its arguments apply to all distributed revision
control systems.

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