Re: The essential problems of moving from CVS

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 07:57:46PM +0900, Curt Sampson wrote:
 > > I think you got it backward. The key qeustions are:
 > > 
 > >  - are there any options besides staying with cvs (for our repository,
 > >    assuming we want to carry on all history "as good as possible")
 > 
 > Well, keep in mind we always have perfect history from the CVS archive.
 > Just because we switch doesn't mean that that's going to get deleted,

Yes, except that (1) since maintaining anoncvs is work, it's desirable
to be able to shut it down, and (2) having history readily available,
as opposed to theoretically available off in a corner somewhere, is
important.

In fact, it's important enough that far from dropping history I think
we ought to be taking the opportunity to merge the CSRG history to
have it all in one pot.

I dunno about you, but I end up searching back that far pretty
regularly.

 > >  - are there any options besides staying with cvs (for our repository,
 > >    assuming we want to carry on all history "as good as possible")
 > >  - for each option, what consequences on the work flow would it have
 > 
 > If these are in order, it's backwards in my opinion. Figuring out how
 > good the history conversion will be, and whether or not we can live with
 > it, is a large task, involving a lot of lengthy testing and probably
 > some programming. Doing all that work for something where we know
 > there's a reasonable chance it would be rejected due to the different
 > workflow is extermely risky.

There's no point going to a lot of trouble figuring out what the
practical impact of switching will be (on more than just "workflow")
if it's not going to work in the first place.

Also, trying to decide what we want to switch to *before* doing
*either* analysis (as your prior mail suggested) is really backwards.
That leads to choosing a system first and predetermining the result of
the feasibility studies so that the chosen system wins.

 > Well, from my point of view that puts you in the group that believes
 > even if we could triple our development speed by switching, 

I don't see any reason to believe switching will produce anything like
that kind of overall net benefit.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost