version control system (was mission critical apps)

[Alex Rice]

On Feb 9, 2004, at 6:05 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> Brian's never seen Chipp's versioning auto-saver?

Chipp's revArchive stack is a smart version of File menu | Save As. 
Better than nothing, but it is definitely not a VC system.

> What can't be hooked ? It's all exposed.

The Linux kernel is completely exposed too. Does that mean I want to go 
rewriting device drivers? No. (Admittedly there is a greater 
possibility of me ever understanding the runrev IDE than some Linux 
kernel code)

I wrote a runrev plugin for using an external script editor. I had to 
do some weird stuff to get it to work, and I'm still clueless what some 
of the messages I'm handling are actually are intended to do in the 
IDE. It was a lot of guesswork.

Writing a version control plugin would be much tougher - and probably 
can't be done with only the Plugin API.

Every time I start looking inside the Runrev IDE, I get this uneasy 
feeling. The best I can describe it is like coming to a a door that's 
closed, but not locked. You peek inside but you aren't sure whether you 
really belong in there.

>> - background groups - are they placed or not placed? How many cards 
>> are
>> they placed on? I found trying to envision a stack as a filesystem
>> hierarchy then background groups get confusing.
>
> Then find another mental model. :)

If one were using a filesystem representation, then it's probably an 
external requirement (i.e. not self-imposed) because the connected VC 
system uses a filesystem. A VC being for example Subversion, the newer 
CVS like system. Most VC systems are based on files and filesystems.

But in a 100% transcript model then you could throw out the filesystem 
representation then I'm sure background groups would be easier to deal 
with.

> But shared backgrounds are useful objects, so there must be some way 
> to map
> it into a database and it seem worth doing.

Definitely

> A number of others here have expressed a similar interest. If an open 
> source
> team was established to create such a system it may attract all the
> resources needed to do a good job and have fun doing it.

Aye.

--
Alex Rice | Mindlube Software | http://mindlube.com