Re: Comment on obliterate functional specification

[Jack Repenning <jr...@collab.net>]

On Mar 2, 2009, at 9:09 PM, Branko Čibej wrote:

> Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 2, 2009, at 10:05 PM, Branko Cibej wrote:
>>
>>> Hyrum K. Wright wrote:
>>
>> You're asking a version control system to remove data, for goodness
>> sakes.  That's just dangerous and if you don't have adult  
>> supervision,
>> you get what you ask for.
>
> :) Well, I find letting your version control system collapse a file's
> history a lot less scary than letting said system edit the file's
> content throughout its history. The one is a well-defined operation,  
> the
> other is fuzzy at best and gets fuzzier along the line -- not to  
> mention
> that you can't avoid breaking all working copies in existence.

Considering just how heretical this sort of removal always seems to VC  
folks, I'm actually on Brane's side: better to publish a list of  
proposed changes, than to run off and do it. I've worn several hats,  
and straddled several fences, in this area for years, but to  
personify: if "I," the person with the compelling security problem and  
the not-quite-but-almost-as-compelling need to keep getting my real  
work done, come to "you," the gloriously and normally commendably  
compulsive data preserving VC person, and ask, in full recognition of  
the VC heresy, yet none the less in absolute earnest, that you expunge  
a bit of history ... well, then, I'm frankly inclined to want to check  
over what you do, because deep in my heart I know that deep in your  
heart you're only doing this under protest, and that you don't have  
that visceral understanding of the problem necessary to make proper  
edge-case calls.

-==-
Jack Repenning
Chief Technology Officer
CollabNet, Inc.
8000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 600
Brisbane, California 94005
office: +1 650.228.2562
mobile: +1 408.835.8090
raindance: +1 877.326.2337, x844.7461
aim: jackrepenning
skype: jackrepenning
twitter: http://twitter.com/jrep

------------------------------------------------------
http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=462&dsMessageId=1262267