Re: CVS commits and logs

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
>     Well, that sort of indirection is the idea, and it's currently
>     possible to find the source log entries, but not using CVS alone:  the
>     changeset information in the merge log refers to _arch_ changesets
>
> Why does merging one CVS branch into another have anything to do with
> arch?
>
> What does arch have to do with this anyway?

Arch is the tool I use -- it makes the process _much_ easier.  I
wouldn't do it if had to use CVS only (CVS is not particular good at
this sort of thing).

>     Even with these tags, it would still be somewhat annoying for someone
>     to track down the exact original commit logs, but I don't think
>     there's really any practical alternative.
>
> One practical alternative is that we stop using arch.

Not only would using CVS only be a lot more work (it's not something I
want to do), but it _would not fix the problem_.

If arch were dropped, assuming you could find somebody to do merges
using CVS (I wouldn't), they'd be in exactly the same position we are
today:  they'd need to either find an acceptable way of recording
"indirection" (probably via tags as I mentioned before), or write tools
to grovel through the commit logs constructing new logs for merging, and
do file-by-file merges.

> Maybe there are others -- such as changing your merge process
> so that it extracts proper CVS log info out of the arch data.

If somebody has a concrete suggestion, by all means give it.  I've made
one (adding CVS tags to allow doing the the necessary "indirection"
without worrying about arch), which I think is imperfect, but certainly
a workable solution.

I think it's also worth thinking about this though:  has there ever been
even a _single_ instance of a developer being inconvenienced by the
current state of things?  How much pain is it worth to "fix" something
which hasn't actually had any noticeably bad effect?

-Miles
-- 
o The existentialist, not having a pillow, goes everywhere with the book by
  Sullivan, _I am going to spit on your graves_.