Re: VCS systems on linux (WAS: Re: what's the killer app for GNU/Linux systems?)
On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 07:00:48 -0800
Marc Shapiro <mshapiro_42@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Florian Kulzer wrote:
>
> >On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 20:30:58 -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> >
> >
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> >>On 11/30/06 16:29, Florian Kulzer wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 16:07:36 -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>>
> >>>>On 11/30/06 15:41, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>I took a software engineering class where the professor maintained that
> >>>>>the only notable contribution that Linus Torvalds has made to the
> >>>>>programming/compsci/compeng world was figuring out how to make it
> >>>>>possible for hundreds of people to work on the same code base without
> >>>>>stepping all over each other.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I'm not sure if I agree with that being his *only* contribution, but it
> >>>>>sure is a good one nonetheless.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>I guess it depends on your definition of "notable". For the longest
> >>>>time, he never use a vcs, and so *lots* of patches got lost.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>He redeemed himself, though, when he decided to start using Bitkeeper,
> >>>right?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>No doubt.
> >>
> >>Unfortunately, "finally using a vcs in the 21st century" is *not* a
> >>notable contribution to the world of software engineering.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I was trying to be sarcastic anyway, seeing how the Bitkeeper story
> >ended:
> >
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitkeeper#Zero-cost_BitKeeper_for_Linux_and_other_open_source_projects
> >
> >
> I have never used a VCS before, but I have a question about them. I
> just got a programming job again (after about 13 years). I hate to
> admit, but it is on M$ using VB 6. The company uses Source Safe, which
> has what I consider to be a really big flaw and I am hoping to verify
> that the standard vcs's in linux manage this problem better.
>
> This project contains over 50 classes, a similar number of forms, and
> dozens of non-class modules. Obviously there are a lot of
> interconnections between all of these files. The problem is this: When
> you check out a file the system gives you a fresh, up-to-date copy of
> the file, but tells you nothing about changes to other files that the
> file checked out file is dependant on that my have changed. This means
> there could easily be dozens of other files that have changes in them
> that you actually need to update on your system before you will be able
> to compile and run the program. You find out about these only when you
> do try to run the program and get errors due to changed funtion
> signatures, missing functions and simply changed funtionality within
> existing funtions called from the checked out file but residing in other
> files.
>
> Please tell me that linux's vcs systems handle this better by keeping
> track of file dependancies.
>
cvs doesn't keep track of file dependencies, but you can update the entire
tree instead of just the file and thus make sure that everything is up to date.
svn has attomic commits to groups of files so that you check in the changes to
all files in one batch and they are grouped together. I'm not sure how this is
handled on an update (pull) though since I didn't use svn yet.
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