RE: cvswrappers - any better suggestions ?

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Thursday, March 29, 2001 at 22:21:29 (-0800), Gianni Mariani wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: cvswrappers - any better suggestions ?
>
> I would actually call this a major deficiency in CVS - it should probably
> assume binary by default, or even use the command 'file' to detect the file
> type on adding a file. Destroying files by default is just not recomended 10
> out of 10 times - just at a guess.

WHOA!  Hold on just a moment here!

"CVS" is the "Concurrent Versions System".  It was explicitly and
knowingly designed to handle *concurrent* editing of *source* code
(i.e. the stuff that's logically mergable with diff3)!  Versions of
binaries files are, by definition, not possible to merge in any logical
way with diff3, ergo CVS does not deal with binary file formats.

This cvswrappers crap was a poorly thought out add-on that does not do
very much good for anyone and which tries its damndest to go against the
core design of CVS from the inside out.  If you use it without fully
understanding the implications then you only get what you deserve.

If CVS destroys binary files by default then that's OK because storing
binary files in CVS in the first place is a user error -- it's not
designed to handle them in any complete way whatsoever.  RTFM.

If you want some kind of file and versioning management tool that has
some of the characteristics and features of CVS (eg. the user interface,
and/or the remote access protocol) then write such a tool -- just don't
call it CVS.

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <address@hidden>      <robohack!woods>
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