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Maybe the managers are just really, really smart, and are holding out for Arch.

Did you look into using revision libraries at all? Additionally, what about using hard links when you check out the project? Cached revisions (a complete tarball up to patch-N)? Perhaps you should also consider multi-config projects... Tagged branches? There are plenty of ways to get around the "tla is slow" argument.

Was your naming convention inspired by tla (Tom Lord's Arch)?

There, you get {archives}/2005-foo/2005-foo--mainline/2005-foo-ma inline--0.1/ for the 0.1 version of the trunk of project "foo" as developed in 2005. Version 0.33 of the experimental gui branch would be {archives}/2005-foo/2005-foo--expgui/2005-foo-expg ui--0.33/ etc.

Rule:

If you don't need to spend 5-10% of your development time to speed/size optimizing your program to make it useable, you are not using language/abstractions that is high level enough to your task.

Explanation:

If I use high level languge (say Haskell/OCaml/Clean/Common Lisp) and use all it's abstarction powers, program code will usually be 10-50% of the size compared to same program written in C/C++ (and Even Java). Now that X% (50-90%) of slack will take X% of development time and contain X% of the bugs. It will make the program much harder to change too. You can see that the 5-10% spent into optimization (you can even write the fast parts in C if you like) will pay.

If you don't belive, compare code of gnu-arch arch to darcs. Both are similar version control systems.

No, actually it's the result of a thorough understanding of arch as a result of comparing it with a LOT of other SCM systems. But you can get the same result as me by reading the arch manual, which discusses creating a new archive. Note that creating a new archive is distinct from creating a new workspace; a workspace has to be associated with an archive.

In other systems, including BitKeeper and darcs, creating a new workspace is the same thing as creating a new archive. They are truly distributed; there's no need to tell it which archive it'll be using, because the answer is "the one I'm working in right now". Every workspace is its own archive, every archive is its own workspace.

The difference is astounding -- it's like the difference between CVS and arch. And yes, I was an arch fan, I even converted someone else to arch. He uses darcs now, just like myself.

-Billy

Subversion is a CVS replacement. It is not and will never be as powerful as Bitkeeper. It does its job as a CVS replacememnt well.

The only Free SCM that can be compared with Bitkeeper is Arch. Arch should be able to replace Bitkeeper in the future if not already (it's been a while since I used Arch). It is Free Software and part of the GNU Project now too.

The reason they have all that money is that they're not in the habit of handing it out to slobs like you and me.

According to Forbes, IBM made $1 billion on Linux servers in 2003. Hewlett Packard made $2.5 billion. That's billion with a "b".

$1 billion is a lot of money. Is it going to Free Software developers? I dunno. I keep seeing Free Software projects hustling for nickels and dimes from you and me. Developers like Tom Lord have to go begging for cash to pay their phone bills while the

Of course, IBM and other big players don't have to pay back the community making the software they're making billions off of with money. They could kick in some code instead. OS/2 would be a welcome piece of Open Source software; the Lotus Office Suite would help too. IBM has a whole hell of a lot of software that would help out a lot.

I dunno. I guess I'm not all that thrilled to see Fortune 500 companies make tons of cash off of Free Software while the developers of that software go begging. It just seems a little backwards.

The biggest downside to arch is user interface and documentation. I hate to say it, but it's true. Obscure error messages is one of arch's biggest problems, and command names and syntax are sometimes not consistent. Focus thus far has been on functionality; user interface cleanups will probably start in earnest after GNU Arch 1.2 is released, which shouldn't be too far off.

There is, however, a fairly decent Arch tutorial called "arch meets Hello World", and if you like wikis, there is a more or less official GNU Arch wiki. (Even if you don't like wikis, there's good information here.) Each tla command will give you short usage if you specify --help as an option, and more info if you give -H.

I'll tell you one thing: It doesn't take millions of dollars to develop a versioning system. It takes one programmer about eight months to build something functional, and then another two years to shake the bugs out and make it perfect.

Correct. The proof is Arch.

It's about 18-20 months through that bug-shaking period. Come help us finish it.

BSD gives anarchy. GNU gives liberty.

People really should try Arch. It's really really good.