Johan Corveleyn wrote: > Julian Foad wrote: >> The work on the 'move-tracking-2' branch currently consists of some >> library functions (mostly named 'svn_branch_*') which are used only by >> the demo tool named 'svnmover'. These do not interfere with normal >> Subversion operation at all. I propose to merge this to trunk to lower >> the barrier to participation in this work. >> >> I first need to review a few places where I touched existing code to >> insert 'shims'; only a small part of this would remain, I think, as >> bidirectional shims are not currently available. >> >> Any objections? > > No concrete objections. > > But it makes me wonder: what is the big plan for svnmover and its > concepts, both on the short term (1.10) and the longer term? > > Do you intend to release it as an experimental demo tool in 1.10, to > give it more visibility and to be able to get feedback from users? In > that case, will we be able to avoid confusion (people might think it's > a core tool, a next generation ui, the real thing, ...)? > > But the bigger question is the long term question: what's the eventual > goal for this? Do you aim for a parallel world, or a complete > reimplementation of certain concepts (in that case, perhaps this is > 2.0-ish)? Or do you want to integrate certain ideas, elements, ui, ... > into the core? And in doing so, add new plumbing for your model, as an > "enrichment" of the existing model; or build on the existing plumbing > to support certain higher level concepts, ....? > > If this is to be integrated into trunk, and thus in some form released > in 1.10, I'd like to know where we're going with this.
Excellent questions, Johan. Thanks for asking them. The Big Plan is a thing that we -- you and the others and me -- need to work out together. I don't know if that will be seamlessly merging new models into the existing Subversion framework, or starting off by building a completely new and incompatible system, or some approach in between those extremes. 'svnmover' is a program for helping developers to understand and try out some concepts that I think are helpful. It is not intended to be useful for end-users, and I hadn't even thought about releasing it. As such, maybe it shouldn't appear as a top-level executable but somewhere else, perhaps in 'tools' or 'contrib'. I want to bring this to trunk because I can't do this on my own. I think it's the number one most important thing that Subversion needs, and so I passionately want to make it work in some way. I have done a big batch of solo thinking and scratched hundreds of sketches on scrap paper, which was productive and resulted in what I think are some good ideas, but there are still some big gaps in how to fit them together into a real Subversion. The phase we're at is the phase of sharing new concepts and interest and ideas among ourselves, and I hope to be able to convince you that although a big and difficult project, it is worth our while and we can do it. - Julian
