Re: Storing unversioned files in a repository.

[Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2003 at 01:35:25PM +0200, brane@xbc.nu wrote:
>...
> > I admit that such use-cases are very rare and that it does not make much
> > sense to implement it before-1.0. But you can not say that there are _no_
> > such cases.
> 
> What I'm saying is that a version control tool should be just that -- a version
> control tool. Not a repository for unversioned files.

Brane,

People have all kinds of reasons for requesting certain types of
functionality. Just because you disagree doesn't mean their use case is
invalid. You might not agree to make the changes to support that use case,
but please go a bit easier when you question what people are trying to do.
It is entirely possible there is a lot more thought and reasoning behind
their query that they omitted for brevity. If you out-of-hand reject their
use case, after they've applied a lot of thought, can come off as "man, that
guy is being a jerk and hasn't listened to what I'm talking about." The
person making a request sees a rejection as irrational since (in their mind)
they have a perfectly valid proposal with plenty of supporting rationale.

Personally, I can see unversioned files as a very handy feature. Yes,
Subversion is a version control system, but an unversioned file type is a
minor step to a great content management / publishing tool. I'm certainly
not about to reject it out of hand. I'd be quite curious what it would
actually take to implement such a thing.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

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Re: Storing unversioned files in a repository.

[Jean-Luc Wasmer <jl...@wasmer.ca>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>

> Personally, I can see unversioned files as a very handy feature. Yes,
> Subversion is a version control system, but an unversioned file type is a
> minor step to a great content management / publishing tool. I'm certainly
> not about to reject it out of hand. I'd be quite curious what it would
> actually take to implement such a thing.
>

I agree. I wanted this feature once (using CVS at the time).

I had two reasons to mix versioned and unversioned files:

1) We decided in the organization to have EVERY file within the same
repository. Just for consistency.
2) Maintenance is easier when files included in other files (like a picture
in a HTML file) are located in a directories which paths are relative the
paths of the files that include them.


The reason I didn't want a revision history for unversioned files is simple:
disk space.

Some files don't need versioning because they never change (like a
contract). They don't take more space in a version control tool than on a
regular public directory.

Unfortunately, most files that don't need versioning are files generated
from versioned source files. Having a script to generate them "on the fly"
is not always possible:
- no tool available (eg. convert a Visio drawing into a Gif file on a Unix
system)
- the process is too slow (convert a OpenFlight file to a Tempest file can
take up to 5 minutes... For 80 files that's almost a day long). Our average
Tempest file is 20 MB... so that's between 1 and 2 gigs of disk space lost
at every release.

JL


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Re: Storing unversioned files in a repository.

[br...@xbc.nu]

Quoting Greg Stein <gs...@lyra.org>:

> Personally, I can see unversioned files as a very handy feature. Yes,
> Subversion is a version control system, but an unversioned file type is
> a minor step to a great content management / publishing tool. I'm
> certainly  not about to reject it out of hand. I'd be quite curious what
> it would actually take to implement such a thing.

I'm not rejecting the feature out of hand, bu I am seriously questioning its
usefulness.

In a previous life, I worked on a CM tool that does support unversioned files
(it also supports all sorts of nice features that neither Subversion nor, for
instance, ClearCase have). During 3 years on that project, I never saw a single
instance of using an unversioned file that doesn't already have a counterpart in
Subversion. The one feature we actually are missing are unversioned properties
-- if that's what it takes to implement ACLs.

If someone can describe a use case that clearly requires unversioned files, I'd
be  interested to hear it.

    Brane

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