Switching from CVS to Subversion: test svn repo available

[Stuart D. Gathman]

On Sun, 23 Oct 2005, Chris Shoemaker wrote:

> > I thought this was the main point of SVN, and the motivation for
> > replacing CVS - that it has atomic changesets that affect many files.
> 
> Please see: http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html#changesets
> 
> for a rather biased, but not unhelpful answer.  The frank answer is
> that there's a *fundamental* *architectural* difference between
> designs that use arrays of versioned trees and designs that use DAGs
> of changesets.  I would dispute the "neither philosophy is better"
> part.

Thanks.  That was very helpful.  So SVN does have atomic commits 
that affect multiple files - unlike CVS.  But it internally stores versioned
trees of file collections vs versioned trees of files for CVS vs
collections of patches for changeset based systems.

> FWIW, my take on the status of this debate is that it's basically
> over.  The systems using changesets have proven far more useful, and
> made the versioned-trees approach seem ... well... backward.

A very important feature for me is that the repository format stills allows
me to extract the latest version of things if it gets corrupted.  I'm
not sure SVN meets that criterion, but CVS does.  That was the main 
motivation for us moving from SCCS to RCS before CVS came out.

> But, there are those who feel far more strongly, and are far better
> informed than I, who make the case far better that I could.  I'd
> suggest googling around and reading the rantings of some of the
> designers of changeset-based systems, if you're interested in the
> debate.

I can easily see how certain operations would be quicker and more
natural for a changeset system.  But there are many criterion, and
I suspect said rantings reflect different priorities than mine.

> Here's a fun link to git's author's opinion on the matter:
> http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/archives/git/0504/0594.html

The main point here is that per file tracking is wrong - and I would
agree.  Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I have read, SVN
stores version trees of filesets rather than files - that is its motivation for
replacing CVS.  Sure, it is storing version trees of the fileset rather
than a collection of changesets for the fileset, but the above rant doesn't
seem to apply to SVN.

-- 
	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
    Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
"Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" - background song for
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