On Sat, Aug 20, 2005 at 02:05:05PM -0000, Mariano Absatz wrote:

9 Aug 2005 22:10:03 -0000, Dada Mail (Justin Simoni) dada@PROTECTED:

As for the merge-hell in 2 11 from the 2 10 x that we'll be on - I'm ready for it, although I do think that CVS will keep track of file moves and apply the diff's, even if the file has changed physical locations It sort of looks like CVS voodoo; I'm hoping jCVS can sort of help in this Mmmhhh sorry for answering so late I've been off-line for over a week and I'm catching up in spasms I don't know about jCVS but it seems to be just a CVS client and, as far as CVS (server) is concerned, file moves and renames just plain "dont' exist" they're simply deletions and additions which, if you don't comment well enough and do some kind of 2 or 3 steps in the client, you'll simply loose sight of the move: http://tinyurl com/7rb5o

Mariano is right that moves don't exist in CVS They can't be done "for real" in a client There is a hack known as a "repo move", which SourceForge might do if you ask nicely

Merge-hell is one of the reasons cite for switching away from CVS

The best I've used for handling merges is darcs If DadaMail is the Macintosh of mailing list managers, darcs is the Macintosh of source control

I recently branched Data::FormValidator to stable and development branches Pretty soon, they differed by 45 patches which I wanted to merge back together

darcs made this as easy as possible It allowed me to look at each patch name interactively, and say "Yes, I want this one", and "No, leave that one this branch" Some minor conflicts were unavoidable because the branches were truly different, but much of it was quick and painless

I think you should consider darcs for DadaMail because:

• It's a joy to work with
• There is an easy cvs2darcs conversion tool
• There are binaries for Mac, Windows and Linux
• It's extremely easy to learn and use (like a Mac! like DadaMail!)
• You can still use SourceForge to host a central repo See here for a reference: http://www abridgegame org/pipermail/darcs-users/2005-February/005558 html
• It's easy to set up a web-based view and RSS for a repo
• It works for offline laptop hacking without anything more to learn
• darcs is installed and up-to-date on Justin's web host

If my rabid enthusiasm hasn't turned you off yet, you may also be interested in:

My own story of switching from CVS to darcs: http://mark stosberg com/Tech/darcs/cvs_switch/

My explanation of "Sponteneous Branches", darcs elegant solution to a common patch management issue: http://wiki darcs net/index html/SpontaneousBranches

Mark