Re: CVS Update Behaviour

[Greg A. Woods]

I really really really really wish you'd learn to use a proper mail
reader that can deal with text and not mangle it beyond reconition!

You haven't been at all successful at avoiding double-posting either.

[ On Saturday, February 23, 2002 at 06:00:52 (-0800), Noel Yap wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: CVS Update Behaviour
>
> --- "Greg A. Woods" <address@hidden> wrote:
> > It seems perfectly simple and very quick when I do
> > it.  Perhaps you
> > should try it:
> > 
> >     cvs log newfile.c | less
> > 
> >     [[ read along until you get to the end and see: - moved
> >     oldfile.c to newfile.c]]
> > 
> >     cvs log oldfile.c | less
> > 
> >     [[ and so on.... ]] 
> 
> 1. This doesn't work in the general case (eg when
> resurrections occur).

Huh?  Sure it does -- though of course you need to modify the algorithm
above to get rid of the "to the end" part -- but then humans are usually
pretty good at figuring out such implications on their own.

> 2. This is hardly transparent to the user.

It's bloody well not supposed to be "transparent"!  You _WANT_ them to
see the rename and understand its implications!

> > Maybe someone with difficulty typing commands would find this
> > "difficult" because of the extra typing, but they would presumably find
> > using any part of the command-line interface to be similarly "difficult"
> > and should probably be using a mouse-driven front-end or some such.
> 
> No, the "difficult" part is parsing the log output to
> find the move comments (assuming the comments are
> correct to begin with).

The comments are correct because you've required that your developers
use a front-end or wrapper.  Right!?!?!?!

Humans are incredibly good at parsing written words.  However even
computers can discern such patterns with ease.

> > Because they're too simple and too lame to ever
> > worry about remembering!  
> 
> And it's much simpler to argue continuously about it?

it's no harder, and a whole lot more fun!

> > Yup, that's pretty much it.  It sure is easy isn't it!  You need some
> > more mechanism around it if you want to use it as a general wrapper
> > (i.e. to enforce its usage), and of course there are the other bits that
> > should be self obvious if you want "log" and "diff" and such to work
> > across renames.
> 
> Since anyone can always call CVS directly, how can you
> possibly enforce its usage (other than through
> policies)?

You can make it harder for anyone to use an un-modified version of CVS,
but really policies are all that's necessary.  If you need more control
than this then your project management is already too far gone to have
much hope for success at anything.

> Whereas if CVS directly supported this, one wouldn't
> have to add this functionality to each wrapper out
> there.

CVS simply cannot ever support the kind of renames some very few of you
continually whinning complainers seem to wish to have without
introducing fundamentally backwards incompatible changes to the
repository format.

So, either start your own new project that has no ties to past
repositories, or quit your bloody whining!

-- 
                                                                Greg A. Woods

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