Why not CVS?

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:21:44 +0100
blogWars

With this rcs debate currently on planet.debian.org I felt the need to add some thoughts.

My point is mainly: Why not simply stick to plain old CVS?

The pros are easily collected: it's installed everywhere, almost everyone know at least the basic commands, and it is rock solid technology without all those little nasty bugs the newer ones have all the time.

Most of the contra arguments are not applicable to me, so how can they to anybody else? ;-)

Like changelog messages: I write a Changelog after a patch, because I look at the patch for doing so. After all, that is what the Changelog is supposed to document, not what I though I did. (And looking at this is always a good way to catch some obvious mistakes one did).

Making multiple patched off other people's projects: Two versions of the directories you are working on is all that is needed. Change the one, make diffs compared to the other. Revert the diff (patch -R or just answer often enough), change the diff to what it should be, reapply it to make sure it still works, test it, revert it again. To make another patch for the same original software, continue from the beginning, otherwise apply the patch to both copies. Just works. Easier than any darcs or co, even if that would not core dump, go into endless loops or play dead dog.

Even the non-exotic new systems still have plenty of features I never needed:

Something has to be really big moving files around is needed at all. And if it is needed, just delete it here and add it there. That looses a bit of history, but that is still found in the older place's history. Moving whole files is there only a special case of moving routines between files while refactorisation, one sometimes just has to look somewhere else.

Even for svn's global revision numbers I have not yet found a use. Being used to cvsish tagging removes the need if thinking before, and between commits there is normally at least a quarter of an hour, so date based indexing always works.

So, what are we talking about?