Re: The essential problems of moving from CVS

[Curt Sampson <cjs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 2010-01-16 19:43 +0000 (Sat), David Holland wrote:

> That is not a disagreement, that's just terminology. The problems are
> insurmountable in the sense that we cannot just start using git.

Ok, so we're in violent agreement there.

> Hacking on git is required....

Possibly not. While the CVS-to-Git conversion code appears to need
some work, and we might need some tools to help deal with issues that
are currently dealt with by partial checkouts, I think that once the
conversion is done Git as it is now will do quite admirably if we're
willing to abandon a few CVS-centric practices that, to my mind, are
comfortable, but far from essential.

> ; furthermore, it appears that some of the things we need/want may not
> be palatable to git's upstream, in which case we're also stuck with
> keeping and maintaining local mods or extensions.

Well, Git excells at that! :-) More seriously, maintaining our own mods
to Git (should they be required--as I mentioned above, I think they're
not) is still easier than writing our own VCS. So it more or less comes
down to, in that case, is it cheaper to maintain our own mods to Git, or
cheaper just to stick with CVS. (I have no answer to that question.)

> However, serious hacking on almost any of the systems is likely to
> bring it to a state where we can use it. And in this sense it's also
> not insurmountable to switch to something that doesn't yet exist...

Let me state, then, I believe that switching to, say, Git is at least
an order of magnitude less hacking than building a VCS from scratch.
Perhaps two.

>  > It is my opinion that this is, in part, because we've "decided" (in the
>  > usual NetBSD default way) on a set of requirements that makes this so.
> 
> I see no sign that this is true....

Ok. I look forward to your proposal on developers@ any day now.

> ...and I don't see any reason to believe that the technical gaps can
> be filled by compromising the project's development practices, even if
> that were a desirable thing to do.

*Sigh*.

This project's "development practices" include going three years without
a release. You wouldn't even be on this list if you didn't belive that
we could do better than we're doing now.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson         <cjs%cynic.net@localhost>         +81 90 7737 2974
             http://www.starling-software.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
by those who have not got it.    --George Bernard Shaw