Finally: Merge Tracking in Subversion
If you’re going to build a “compelling replacement for CVS”, then you need to do two key things:
- Make commits atomic, with proper changesets
- Handle merging properly (e.g. support repeated, bi-directional and cherry-picked merges)
Sure, there are other things to improve on, and there is further room for innovation, but these are the two most fundamental features that CVS lacks. This is why I mentioned in my last post that I have been disappointed with the progress of Subversion. I am a Subversion user, and do prefer it to CVS. However, consider that the Subversion project was started in June 2000, and version 1.0 was released in February 2004. Proper merging support is long, long overdue. Thankfully, though, it is finally coming:
http://merge-tracking.open.collab.net/
Current estimates target a 1.5 release with merge tracking in “late summer”, which I guess means August (people need to remember that there are two hemispheres…). I do hope that the new merging support is worth the wait.
July 20th, 2007 at 5:52 am
I wouldn’t expect too much, it’s still just CVS with lipstick. Of course the vendor strategy of giving away the pig to sell the farm is all too common. Would have been easier if some innovation beyond just the typical RCS was included. I guess we can hire some more people to wrap some extensions around it like we had some people do with ClearCase, but their not hear anymore and I don’t know what is worse.