FreeLists / openbeos / [openbeos] Re: SCM

[Michael Phipps <mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Combining a couple of messages:

On 2004-11-01 at 07:28:14 [-0500], Matthijs Hollemans wrote:
> > Should we implement our own SCM?
> 
> No. And here is why: The goal of Haiku is to build an operating system, not 
> SCM tools. I am sure building your own source code revisioning system is an 
> interesting and fun project, and I won't stop you from building one, but it 
> is not a task for the Haiku developers. It is just busywork that detracts us 
> from the real goal.

I agree.
 
> Jobs like these don't produce the code that we need for R1. They just drain 
> away valuable time and resources. And anything that doesn't bring us closer 
> to the goal of having a working clone of BeOS R5 is simply something that 
> shouldn't be done, no matter how fun it is.

I agree.
 
> CVS is not perfect, but it also doesn't slow us down that much. The time we 
> lose because of the quirks of CVS is infintely smaller than the time we gain 
> by building our own CVS replacement. From a business point-of-view -- and 
> Haiku, Inc is a business -- it just doesn't make any sense. (Disclaimer: I 
> don't speak for Haiku, Inc.)

I do. :-D And an SCM is definately WAY out of scope for R1.

Mat Hounsell wrote:
>Choice of SCM is like choice of language, editor or even colour schemes. You
>can never satisfy everyone.

Agreed.

>If you want to talk about / plan SCM for OSBOS you could discuss it on the
>Glasselevator List or write wiki pages on terminology or concepts or choices on
>BeBits or write an RFC for BeUnited.

Not only should you, but I encourage it. Why? Well, I think that there are a 
lot of potential benefits to a versioning system that people outside of 
developers could take advantage of. It would be great to have a document 
revision system built in that was better than what Word does. Likewise, 
something similar for picture editing. Music, DTP, etc. There are lots of 
different situations where you have a long running work in progress wherein it 
would be handy to have access to prior versions and make notes associated with 
each version. 

I think that this could/would be a great feature for some future version of 
Haiku. I even wanted to write it, at one point.

>But IMO we should stick with what we've got unless someone provides a complete
>hosting, information, viewing, build and tool set for Haiku.

It is likely that we will leave SF/CVS. It is unlikely that we will do so for 
our own homegrown solution. Subversion or Perforce are far more likely.