Sven Panne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The learning curve for CVS-aware people is extremely low with subversion,
In my experience, darcs has the lowest scm learning curve, especially for users who haven't used an scm before. > So my question in a nutshell: Why shall we move away from the mainstream > when the rest of the world (or most of) is quite happy with CVS or is > moving to subversion? I'm not completely against it, but we should have > very, very good reasons to do so. > P.S.: Yes, I'm aware of other development models like the one used for the > Linux kernel, where CVS/subversion are not appropriate, but is fptools > really a similar project? I don't expect hundreds of people working in a > very distributed manner on extensions of e.g. a type checker... :-] There are many projects (including fptools) to which I would have contributed patches if the startup cost of sending a patch weren't so high. With darcs, every checkout is an independent repository, and if you have a working sendmail/MAPI setup you can send any changes you make back to the source of your checkout with a single command. With darcs I immediately get the benefits of source control without needing to make a separate copy of the master repo. With svn or cvs, I can't locally get all the benefits of the system without a user account for the repository. With cvs/svn I can't hack around in an anonymous checkout and only commit my patches back to the original repo once I've decided I want to join the project. darcs doesn't require a unix account for committers, it can receive and authenticate patches via gpg-signed emails. Why should authentication information be tightly bound to a repository? Non-core members can share patches. If darcs sends to a public list anyone who absolutely needs a patch can apply it before it gets to the main tree. That patch will still work even if the patch never gets to the main tree. There are a large number of potential committers on the #haskell irc channel alone. Lots of people end up wishing for small changes to the code in fptools but usually end up forking a library or module for their product instead. lambdabot, the Haskell irc bot is a good example of the low cost of patch submission encouraging rapid development. There's a surprising number of people who've committed small but useful features because it's so easy to do. (Much of this content is paraphrased from a recent conversation on #haskell. Several people contributed salient points.) -- Programming is the Magic Executable Fridge Poetry, | www.ScannedInAvian.com It is machines made of thought, fueled by ideas. | -- Shae Matijs Erisson _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
