On Friday, Aug 15, 2003, at 01:17 Europe/London, Greg Stein wrote:
On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 10:49:29PM -0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:... From: "Jeremy Boynes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: SVN and Eclipse To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:56:37 -0700
Do any of these plugins support MacOSX, or is there a GUI client available?
That appears to be the biggest issue with adopting SVN at the moment.
"But SVN doesn't support feature <X>. No way can we use it!"
Say stuff like that all you want, but recognize that there will *always* be
a feature disparity between CVS and SVN.
Yes, there will no doubt be differences. Here's how I see the main one:
Not supported on the OS that I use to develop all my code versus an ability to move code from one place in the repository to another.
Sorry, but I don't really care how the server works -- I need the client to work :-)
So maybe the Eclipse integration isn't "as nice" as you might like, but that
is just one item. On the *other* side of the fence are SVN's features that
CVS doesn't have:
* atomic commits * WebDAV access * svn move, svn copy * O(1) tagging and branching * etc etc ... see http://subversion.tigris.org/ for more
Yeah, these are all nice things but the only thing (IMHO) that makes SVN stand out better than CVS is the move. And you can do it in CVS; you just move the ,v file from one directory to another.
The only advantages of having the move supported is that it keeps the log changes between moves from what I can tell; and if you have access to the CVS server even that isn't a problem.
The suggestion that "lack of Eclipse" integration is enough to *not*
consider SVN seems rather short-sighted. It seems like you aren't
considering the other side of the equation. What do you *get* by switching?
The ability to not develop code on my machine? A small space saving on the server? Log messages from when the code was very old?
Given some of the recent moves in the repository, and given that more are
probably on the way until Geronimo matures, then I think the lack of an 'svn
move' (which tracks history of course!) seems like a pretty big opportunity
cost.
For who, though? As an end-developer, I don't see any real difference. Yes, I know there's more server space and lack of messages, but if you've got access to the CVS logs of the new file (and there's an appropriate log in there, such as 'moved from Xxx/Xxx/Xxx' then you can browse the attic to find the deleted files.
Of course, I'm biased :-), but I also think the discussion needs to think
about more items than simply Eclipse integration.
There aren't a whole lot of other decent tools available for free on Mac OS X. Cutting a small-but-non-negligible user-base out of development to save bytes on the server isn't a good tradeoff IMHO.
SVN clients may exist, but there's no way I'd want to use a source management tool outside of Eclipse ...
"CVS might be integrated with Eclipse, but there's no way I'd want to use a
source management tool that doesn't support move/copy."
If you're not administering the server, I'm not sure you'd see much difference. If you are administering the server, then yes, there's probably something to say for the upgrade.
Note I didn't say "I'd never use it", and no doubt there will come a time when the SVN server and SVN client support in your favourite IDEs will make the switch easier. But until it's there, I don't think that it necessarily makes sense ...
Alex.
