Use of CVS

[Damian Wiest]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 08:35:43PM -0800, Doug Hardie wrote:
> 
> On Jan 11, 2007, at 18:28, Norberto Meijome wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:35:38 -0800
> >Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Any suggestions on these approaches will be appreciated.
> >>Thanks,
> >
> >I suggest you read the CVS Red book, in particular the section on  
> >branch
> >management and merging.
> >http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/cvsbook.html
> >
> >I agree with other posters, you may want to move to newer SCM  
> >systems... I've
> >been using SVN for a while now, and couldn't be happier. There's  
> >also a SVN red
> >book , with sections for current CVS users to understand the  
> >differences.
> 
> Thanks.  I have started reading them.

Don't forget the Cderquist!  It should have been installed along with 
the CVS binary and man pages.

I haven't used Subversion myself, but have plenty of experience with 
release management using CVS.  If you start using branches, make sure
you keep complete and accurate documentation of your branching and 
merging.  Also, make sure you understand what will and will not get
merged in certain situations.

For example, it's fairly common to make the following mistake:

1) You main development branch is on the trunk.
2) You create a branch for some development and add some new directories
3) You prepare for a merge by updating to the latest version of the trunk
   with something like "cvs -q up -PAd"
4) You perform your merge operation: "cvs -q up -j DEV_BRANCH"

You will not have merged your new directories to the trunk.  This is 
because you pruned empty directories in step 3 and CVS will only examine 
directories that exist in your working copy during a merge.

-Damian