Re: Switching to Subversion

["Juanma Barranquero" <lekktu@gmail.com>]

On 11/13/06, Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> wrote:

> He provides pretty good arguments _against_ subversion

Based on false statements, like this one:

"The old Berkeley DB-based backend has been deprecated as unstable and
subject to corruption [..."

FSFS is the default, but the BDB backend was never "deprecated as
unstable". And, in the ChangeLog of the latest release, there's this
bit of information:

  A common problem with previous versions of Subversion is that
  crashed server processes could leave BerkeleyDB-based
  repositories in an unusable "wedged" state, requiring
  administrators to manually intervene and bring back online.
  (Note: this is not due to bugs in BerkeleyDB, but due to the
  unorthodox way in which Subversion uses it!)

  Subversion 1.4 can now be compiled against BerkeleyDB 4.4,
  which has a new "auto-recovery" feature. If a Subversion server
  process crashes and leaves the repository in an inconsistent
  state, the next process which attempts to access the repository
  will notice the problem, grab exclusive control of the
  repository, and automatically recover it. In theory (and in our
  testing), this new feature makes BerkeleyDB-based repositories
  just as wedge-proof as FSFS repositories.

>    And yes, Havoc, anyone seriously entertaining moving to SVN should have
>    their heads examined.

Ah, yes, a good technical argument.

                    /L/e/k/t/u