[vox-tech] cvs questions - replacement

[Mike Simons]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 08:21:15AM -0800, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
>    cvs remove thisI<tab>
>    rm thisI<tab>
> 
> rather than what cvs forces you to do:

cvs rm -f thisI<tab>

  ...doesn't seem so hard.

> i've always been impressed with linux's tendency to make things super
> convenient for programmers.   but cvs runs counter to this.  it's almost
> as if it was developed with no user input to the developers.

  CVS was developed by developers.  Major weaknesses include handling of
directories, renaming of files, tracking permission bit across versions,
non-atomic commits, no concept of "change sets" (a changes to multiple
files are a single change), backout of single changesets, and handling
decentralized master archives.

> i'm sure there are cvs replacements out there.   i'm wondering if
> anybody has ever played around with one?   make suggestions?

  I have heard of three alternatives that are non-commercial but have 
not played with any of them extensively:

- Subversion (is a group that forked CVS with the 
              intention to make it suck less)
- Arch (is a sh/ftp based system which supports distributed master
        archives and some concept of change sets)
- Bitkeeper (has funky semi-commercial dual mode license, very powerful,
             I'd be worried about the stability of the maintainer).

  There are also a bunch of fully commercial packages...

  I would investigate Arch and Subversion in that order... then
Bitkeeper...

    Let me know what you find,
      Mike Simons