CVS modules functionality -- any movement?

[Steve Seremeth <su...@seremeth.com>]

Hello -

I looked through a _lot_ of old threads re: CVS "modules" functionality 
and it seems that many folks are looking for the same functionality we 
are.  We have a repository of about 11,000 files totalling a little over 
1 GB of data.  In the trunk we have 143 top level directories.  Our 
application is multi-tiered so we have the usual front end components, 
mid-tier components, and backend components.  The developers are looking 
for a way to checkout a subset of the trunk/branch directories, 
depending on the part of the system they are working on -- and 
immediately this reminded me of the CVS "modules" feature, where you 
assigned an alias to any number of modules in your repository and you 
could checkout/add/update/etc. against the alias.  The caveat is that 
there are, of course, some shared libraries between the various tiers in 
the application.

I looked into using svn:externals for this and thought the best way to 
implement the same functionality would be to create something like this:

/trunk
    /frontend_component1
    /frontend_component2
    /frontend_component3
    /midtier_component1
    /midtier_component2
    /midtier_component3
    /backend_component1
    /backend_component2
    /backend_component3
/aliases
    /frontend
       svn:externals   
frontend_component1=http://www.myrepos.com/svn/trunk/frontend_component1
       svn:externals   
frontend_component2=http://www.myrepos.com/svn/trunk/frontend_component2
       svn:externals   
frontend_component3=http://www.myrepos.com/svn/trunk/frontend_component3
    ...

However, as soon as you need to branch, you have to repoint your 
externals on the branch to the branch instead of the trunk.  This 
becomes a bit of a management headache.  Other folks have suggested 
referential paths would be the way to implement the solution, and 
perhaps that's right.  One semantic that would need to be considered 
might be in adding new directories to the working copy.  They would have 
to be committed on the trunk (or branch) and then added to the "module" 
or "alias" after, and the working copy would either have to know that 
the alias is just a fraction of the real trunk or the developer would 
have to checkout the trunk and then add the directory and add it to the 
module/alias.  The latter is obviously not very desirable, but if that 
was the workaround for now, then so be it.

The developer described the desired behavior to me actually as the 
reverse of the "modules" behavior.  "Let me choose to ignore certain 
directories in the repository, and give me everything else."  Either way 
you have to maintain lists (the files/dirs you want or the files/dirs 
you don't want), and personally I think it's cleaner to define the 
directories that make up something than the reverse.

One reason we don't just checkout the directories individually is 
because, for example, in TortoiseSVN (most of our developers are on 
Windows machines), updating on many directories _instead_ of the one 
parent directory is hurrendously painful (major memory hog and 
unbelievably time consuming).

Some past threads on the issue (some of which are very thorough):

http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2004-03/0797.shtml
 continued here: http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2004-03/0835.shtml
http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2004-12/0906.shtml
http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2004-07/1732.shtml

I get the sense that there are many folks wanting this feature -- 
clearly it's not as important as locking, but is it even on anyone's 
radar?  Consider this a "me too, me too" type e-mail to add our voice to 
the fray.

Thanks very much,

Steve

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