(no subject)

[nmeyers at javalinux.net (nmeyers at javalinux.net)]

On Sun, Nov 23, 2003 at 11:48:15AM -0500, Gregory Gimler wrote:
> I had a need to 
> make my first branch on this proto-type the other day and realized some 
> things I didn't like about CVS.

There's a lot about CVS that's frustrating - just look at any project
that claims to be a "better" CVS to see a good list. I'm pretty sure
I've banged my head against every CVS limitation anyone's ever complained
about :-).  What has scared me away from migrating away from CVS is that
it's a much more proven technology than most of the free alternatives.
For this I put up with a lot of headaches - especially around branch
management.

One exception to the new-and-unproven thing is Aegis
(http://aegis.sourceforge.net), which is so different from CVS that
I haven't yet tried to take the leap. It's been around for awhile and
is evidently pretty stable - one of these days I may try it on a new
project to see how it feels.

Nathan

> 
> A nasty part about branching is that the person who branches needs to keep 
> track of a lot of stuff. As I've personally demonstrated in previous 
> projects, this is problematic. There are branches there that I don't know 
> what they are anymore. Worse, there is no way to tell their state (were the 
> changes merged to the main trunk? When? Were changes made on the branch 
> after that merge?...etc). CVS has fundamental issues which prevents it from 
> being able to do these things for you.  I'm trying to prevent these kinds 
> of things from happening again.
> 
> I have a better appreciation of why Linus moved the Linux kernel from CVS 
> to Bitkeeper.