Greg Woods wrote:
>
>[ On Thursday, April 19, 2001 at 15:47:14 (-0500), David H. Thornley
wrote: ]
>
>> Um, what's so sacred about RCS file format? I realize that file
>> formats are to be changed only with caution, but since the entire
>> functionality is internalized into CVS (as of 1.10, I believe)
>> there is no reason why it cannot be changed for a good purpose.
>
>Those two points are totally orthogonal.
>
>Some people have even argued that the CVS repository format is
>irrelevant and all that matters is the network protocol...
I would agree with this.
>The RCS format is important because it makes it possible to retrieve the
>contents of the repository with third-party tools (eg. RCS itself). RCS
>file format is well documented and tools for handling it are widely
>implemented, the canonical definition being publicly and freely
available.
This is beneficial but not necessary in my opinion.
>
>The RCS format is also important because it guarantees forward and
>backward and sideways compatibility and interoperability with other
>releases and variants of CVS. One can rewrite CVS from scratch and
>still *interoperate* with the exact same repository.
This is irrelevant. I converted an SCCS repository to a CVS repository
and RCS compatibility was (obviously) not required to do this. It
wouldn't matter what file format CVS stored its files in if I have a tool
to convert from my existing source control file format.
>Finally the RCS format is important because it means that many RCS users
>can migrate to using CVS without losing version history or trying to
>figure out how to convert it to some new format.
As stated above, this is a red herring. I was able to convert from SCCS
to CVS without losing version history.
--
Stephen Rasku E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senior Software Engineer Web: http://www.pop-star.net/
TGI Technologies
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