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Re: FAQ Q: another version control system?

From
APAndy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com>
Date
May 2, 2007, 09:25 UTC
Message-ID
<200705021025.22626.andyparkins@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<9e7886190705020013k5721480aj767c1c8643fc8d23@mail.gmail.com>
On Wednesday 2007 May 02, Peter wrote:

I suspect you are a troll as your questions have such obvious answers that they hardly seem worth giving. Despite that, I'll answer them for the sake of the googlers who stumble on your message.

> Do we really need another version control system?  As I understand it,
> this is like a distributed, central-server-less, CVS, sorry, SVN
> server.

Why didn't the subversion guys just add their features to CVS? The subversion guys are not stupid people - why haven't they added these features to subversion? The answer is that they fundamentally don't fit. Distributed version control is not just something you patch in later as a feature - it is designed in from the beginning. Have a look at the monstrosity that is svk (distributed version control with a subversion backend).

Show 6 quoted lines
> But why isn't such a feature set added into SVN?  Why do I have to
> download another version control system just so that I can "git"
> libxcb and X11 so that I can compile gtk so that I can compile xchat
> so that I can go onto the IRC server for madwifi so that I can ask
> someone there why their wifi drivers don't create a /dev/wifi0 on my
> system so that I can get my wireless working????

Given that git is converting a lot of subversion/CVS users - including the projects you list above, do you not think that they might have had a reason for doing so? Don't ask git developers why they wrote git - go and ask those projects why they are using it.

Practically, I think you're overstating the difficulty of "downloading another version control system". On debian/ubuntu you would do:

 $ sudo apt-get install git-core
If you really did want to compile these things, then you would do:
 $ cd src
 $ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/xserver.git
 $ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xcb.git
 ... etc ...

But are you seriously suggesting that you need to compile the latest and greatest X11/xcb/gtk/xchat just to chat on IRC? Why not just do

 $ sudo apt-get install xchat

If your distribution doesn't supply an apt-get equivalent then you must have picked one where you compile everything from source by hand - in which case - what are you moaning about - you did this to yourself?

Andy
-- 
Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIET
andyparkins@gmail.com
Previous: Jakub NarebskiNext: Johannes Schindelin
Message 3 of 5 in “FAQ Q: another version control system?”
  1. PeterMay 2, 2007
  2. Jakub NarebskiMay 2, 2007
  3. Andy ParkinsMay 2, 2007
  4. Johannes SchindelinMay 2, 2007
  5. Martin LanghoffMay 2, 2007

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