[ILUG] source control systems

[Jag Gunawardana]

I've done some CVS to GIT migrations. The biggest change is in the mindset
of developers. I prefer distributed version control for a number of reasons
(the ease of git branches is worth the change alone), and part of the
popularity of git is that it fits the open source model well. If you're
locked into the CVS (and other traditional systems) mode of thinking then it
can be a bit of a culture shock. I have seen it work well with teams of
around 20 to 40 developers. It has excellent performance, and the merge is
as good as most other systems. If performance is the main problem then I
most other traditional central systems tend to hit this issue at sometime.

There is a CVS server (some sort of CVS emulator) so that you can still work
as though you were using CVS (see link below), and I think that there are
other projects to increase inter-operability.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitcvs-migration.html

Regards
Jag

2009/5/8 Gareth Eason <bigbro at skynet.ie>

>
>        Hi,
>
>        Like everything, it depends :)
>
>        You have to decide on how your developers work, and particularly
> since they
> are used to cvs they may find their methods of working favour a migration
> towards something like subversion.
>
>        There are ways to replicate parts or all of a subversion repository,
> though I
> must confess I've not tried these. Whichever method you might choose would
> depend on what's in each repository, value, size and frequency of checkins
> expected, size of total repository, and most importantly, the methods and
> processes your developers use and expect to be able to use. Have a look at
> http://www.devx.com/opensource/Article/39525/1954 for some ideas.
>
>        Something like git/bzr - a distributed source control system - will
> inherently solve the problem you describe, but is a fundamentally different
> way of working for a developer used to CVS (IMHO!) It's great where you
> have a
> huge distributed tree of developers with little overlap in the code they
> touch, but can be very messy in small to medium development environments
> where
> multiple people are working on the same file or in close proximity (in a
> file/project sense, rather than a physical sense) since time is wasted
> doing
> merges and retesting.
>
>        Something like Perforce supports the concept of caching servers, as
> does
> clearcase I believe (though I've never tried.) They cost money, but with
> the
> distinct advantage that they work largely in the ways expected by
> developers
> used to using something like CVS.
>
>        Hope this helps.
>
>        Best regards,
>        -->Gar
>
> Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > Dave Rearden wrote:
> >> hi all,
> >>
> >> we currently use CVS here, but we're increasingly facing problems with
> >> large checkouts timing-out over VPNs. our main office is in dublin, with
> >> secondary offices in galway and madrid.
> >>
> >> we'd ideally like to have 3 synchronized repositories, one in each
> >> location, that take care of their own replication.
> >>
> >> i understand GIT is capable of such magic, has anyone ever set this up?
> >>
> >> i'm also aware of SVK, but it doesn't suit our needs as people will need
> >> to check in at all 3 repoisoties, not just the "master".
> >>
> >> thanks,
> >>
> >> dave.
> >
> > hg, bzr, git are all good DVCSs.
> > git is the most popular.
> >
> > cvs is impressively bad, so whatever you choose,
> > it will be infinitely better.
>
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