[Pw_forum] CVS vs. SVN

[Norbert Nemec]

Dear Stefano, dear everyone,

thanks for your open words. Your response made me aware that I probably 
did not make a very good first impression as an unknown newcomer 
"demanding" to change the way things are done before even making any 
contribution whatsoever. I will do my best to tread a bit softer.

Please let me rephrase the issue of the CVS to SVN transition: I fully 
understand that there are plenty of issues that take the attention of 
very few developers and a thing like this transition is at the highest 
priority. However, I do believe that structural improvements can help 
exactly in that issue as they simplify the workflow and allow the 
developers to spend less of their time on urgent issues and more on the 
important ones. Specificially the CVS to SVN transition would have 
minimal cost but significant benefit.

So, to turn my "demand" into an "offer": I volunteer to oversee the 
transition and do any work that might arise. The conversion itself and 
the setup of the QEforge site would have to be done by the admins, but 
it should be straightforward. Scripts like cvs2cl.pl can most likely be 
replaced by fairly trivial scripts if they don't become redundant 
anyway. Documentation needs to be adjusted and partly rewritten. I would 
put together a full list of things to do before starting anything to 
make sure that I don't miss anything.

For the developers, the transion would merely mean that they commit all 
their changes one evening and check out freshly with SVN the next 
morning. For all the everyday commands, svn works exactly like cvs, so 
the developers can continue with business-as-usual right away.

So, if I take the workload of the transition upon me, would this change 
the argument?

Greetings,
Norbert




Stefano Baroni wrote:
> Dear Norbert: thank you for your valuable advice, which will receive 
> our utmost consideration. Please, consider that QE is a huge project 
> carried on by a relatively small number of people. You are really most 
> welcome to join us. By doing so, you should also consider that the 
> number of things that ought to be done "better sooner than later" is 
> probably larger than you can imagine, and certainly larger than what 
> can actually be done. This being said, QE will probably be moved to 
> SVN. The time frame of the move will not be decided by how much better 
> SVN is with respect to CVS, but how many more urgent things have to be 
> done. I am sure you will understand this, and I wish you will not 
> withdraw your support if the version control system you'll have to 
> work with is not your favorite one (nor it probably is of any of the 
> developers). Cheers - Stefano