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CVS Helper Software?
MetalShard asks: "While building Pocket War we started using CVS and found it to be the best version control system any of us have ever used. We are also using Code Historian which works with CVS and lets you analyze the changes you have made in you code, and TortoiseCVS which adds an easy to use front end to CVS. It seems like there are a lot of cool add-ons for CVS, but we have not found a good CVS server configuration program. Is there one?"
Not really a tool per se, but just a hint that can prove helpful. You might find the existing CVS server configuration of projects like NetBSD or FreeBSD useful. I know I did :-)
Instead of repeating the steps that others have taken to configure your CVSROOT/ stuff, you can copy existing configurations and make a few modifications to match your local style, taste, or other details of setup. For instance, this article from the FreeBSD documentation set describes how you can set things up for automatic mail notifications and commit log archiving, using the scripts developed by the FreeBSD CVS admins.
--My other computer runs FreeBSD too.
I haven't used this particular module, but Webmin has a decent and consistant UI, so it should do what you want. That said, it doesn't seem like there's much server configuration that you have to do once it's set up. WebCVS is pretty handy too.
jEdit has a great plugin for CVS called GruntSpud that when used with jDiff does the same job as Code Historian all inside of one app
Binary delta storage?? So what? Yeah rename would be nice. Changesets. But I would hardly call those "vital features". Hell RCS is sufficient for most small projects with only one developer. Bitkeeper really shines in the area of massivly multi-developer projects. CVS is fine for any small to medium sized projects. It's also free (as in beer). I've never heard of ClearCase.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
ClearCase is appalling bloatware. You're lucky.
Everybody does rename by delete+create, or by
moving the repository file. No reason not
to automate it, methinks.
Binary deltas would really be good.
The easiest would be encoding as ascii hex
at the client during commit when the entry is
marked -kb. That would take perhaps 20 minutes
to implement. Of course the storage would be 3x,
but you'd get that back after 2 deltas.
Changesets would also be easy to add.
Thing is, you can add the feature, but can
you get it back into the distribution?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Amen!
CVS is a necessary evil whose only real advantages are price and public availability. Unfortunately, it's kinda become a standard so you can put up an anonymous CVS server and not have to tell anyone how it works. It's also integrated into so many other products (IDEs, ANT, etc) that you almost forget how much of a kludge it is.
So many things in CVS are complete hacks that everyone has gotten used to. Tagging is used to emulate many features of real SCCSs, but ends up being just a big hack that never seems to work right. Plus, you can't do really simple things like checkout a tree that isn't tagged a certain way. Renaming files, atomic check-ins, new directories not showing up when you update...the list of features missing from CVS is very long.