Re: GIT and CVS

Jan Kratochvil
2011-10-14T05:56:08Z

On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 01:37:03 +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> > While useful, they don't replace information of this type:
> >
> > * configure.ac (tic6x-*-*): Remove gdb from noconfigdirs.
>
> git log -p:
> tic6x-*-*)
> - noconfigdirs="$noconfigdirs gdb sim"
> + noconfigdirs="$noconfigdirs sim"
>
> git annotate:
> 005efcbe (Joseph Myers 2010-03-23 16:05:34 +0000 1022) tic6x-*-*)
> 34dd72a9 ( qiyao 2011-08-14 12:28:15 +0000 1023) noconfigdirs="$noconfigdirs sim"
> 005efcbe (Joseph Myers 2010-03-23 16:05:34 +0000 1024) ;;
> ->
> git show 34dd72a9
[...]
> I think you missunderstood me, if I am looking at a bug I wish to
> follow the changes done to something, usually a function. While
> log/annotate are useful to see what the tree looked like at some
> point,

Not just at some point. The [revision] parameter there can go back in history
which is why I also put it here in the former mail:

git annotate configure.ac 34dd72a9^
005efcbe (Joseph Myers 2010-03-23 16:05:34 +0000 1022) tic6x-*-*)
fe571c9f (Joseph Myers 2011-04-28 13:24:51 +0000 1023) noconfigdirs="$noconfigdirs gdb sim"
005efcbe (Joseph Myers 2010-03-23 16:05:34 +0000 1024) ;;

It could be made more convenient but GIT provides IMO the best such
feature+performance so far to make it feasible.

> it doesn't help me follow how something has changed over a time
> period. ChangeLog makes this trivial.

ChangeLog is not usable for tracking such changes as I cannot trust it wrt
mistakes of its text vs. the real source changes. And also/primarily the word
description of the diff (*) there is too general.

(*) I do not understand why it makes sense to re-state by human what is already
present in the diff itself.

> You could store the exact same information in the ChangeLog, git
> doesn't solve what you put in the ChangeLog/commit message.

The problem with CVS is I need to access the server for anything. Which is
either slow or temporarily overloaded/inaccessible or I am just offline.

I would need to have always up-to-date rsync copy for local access - do you
have? It is just easier with GIT, and working even for projects where usually
the rsync access is not provided (but no other projects use CVS anymore).

> Or, with a fictious bug ID:
>
> 2011-07-26 Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>
>
> Implement new DWARF macro proposal. (Bug#123456)
>
> URL: http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2011-07/msg00732.html
[...]
> I agree, such information is useful. Several projects have started
> adding it as part of the ChangeLog entry; like the examples above.

Yes, that would be great.

Thanks,
Jan