[Gllug] subversion

[Doug Winter]

Richard Jones wrote:
> The real problem with Subversion (and CVS) is that they define a
> priviledged class of "committers" who are allowed to use the
> repository in read/write mode.  Everyone else gets to checkout and
> update from the repository at best but basically are excluded from
> using version control features at all.

I've been using subversion for everything for a while now, and I really 
like it.  I'm using the Berkeley Backend too, even though I didn't 
really trust it to begin with (fear the transaction logs), and it's been 
good.  I keep a months worth of backups of the repo though.

Although the repository is in binary, you can export it in a fungible 
format if you need to, so you can meddle with it by hand if you want, 
just like with CVS.  I've not tried this myself.

Richard's point above is a good one, and the darcs/arch/bk model sounds 
excellent for large-scale open source projects - if your contributors 
can work with it.  It does need them all to get the hang of it though, 
which can be non-trivial.

One of the great advantages of subversion is that it's very similar in 
mechanics to CVS, so it's easy to get developers to move to it.  I think 
that's why it's quickly becoming something of a standard - it's like CVS 
with the annoying bits removed.

It's also pretty easy for those with no experience.  I've been running a 
project with some windows developers who have never used revision 
control before (!!!) and they've been able to cope with it OK, although 
they get confused by it easily.  Such is the world of windows 
programming.  Anyway, they would just throw their hands up in horror at 
multiple repositories and they'd probably go back to emailing 40MB RAR 
files of source around rather than try and understand it.  If you ever 
wonder why lots of windows programs suck, you could start there.

The final thing I like about subversion, and the absolutely killer 
feature for me, is the magnificent Trac:

     http://projects.edgewall.com/trac

I imagine interfaces to other revision control systems will come along 
in time, but Trac really is the dog's bollocks, and already I'd not be 
without it.

doug.

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