Re: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> writes:
>
>> > SVN branches are incredible confusing because they fail to
>> > distinguish the directory structure of the project's source tree
>> > from the arrangement of available latest versions.
>> 
>> That is because there _is_ no difference.  You just store different
>> versions in different places.  What they are named is a convention,
>> nothing more, nothing less.
>
> Branching by copying (!) and tagging by copying (!!!) is abuse
> of the fact that copying in Subversion is cheap.

Uh, no.  A lot of work has been invested into ensuring that copying in
Subversion in cheap _exactly_ because of the design decision to
implement branching and tagging via copying.

It is not an accident that copying is cheap.

> Distinguishing between branch part of directory name by _convention_
> is design mistake; the fact that the tool doesn't help to ensure that
> (a) tags lie on branch (b) tags _doesn't change_ is an example of this
> stupidity.

How much have you worked with Subversion so far?  I am doing quite a bit
of work with it, and the do-everything-via-copying paradigm does not get
in my hair.  It actually means that I have to remember fewer commands.
And it is pretty easy to understand.

>> Really, Subversion is rather simple to understand.  But it is not a
>> DVCS.  Moving a history from one repository to another is not really
>> feasible unless you are doing straight mirroring.
>
> Subversion is simple if you are limited to simple things; but the
> same is true with Git.  I find for example the whole 'properties'
> mechanism and its use seriously not simple.

Granted, particularly concerning the external property. OTOH, it makes
the equivalent of git submodules rather cheap (and I actually still have
no idea how git submodules properly work and what implications they
have).

-- 
David Kastrup