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Subject: 
Re: We need an update NOW (Was: Parts Update?)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev
Date: 
Thu, 3 May 2001 18:50:10 GMT
Viewed: 
3433 times
  
In lugnet.cad.dev, Paul Gyugyi writes:
In lugnet.cad.dev, Steve Bliss writes:
I don't know if you saw earlier messages about the Part Tracker, but there
was some discussion about whether or not we could use CVS as a backend to
an automated system.  What do you think?

I'll go look up the discussion.  I'm just getting back into the
swing of things.  I think CVS would be a great way of distributing
the parts.  There's clearly some managment tools needed to help
with organizing the submissions and reviews of new parts.  Some
of this could be helped with CVS, but you would probably need
a front-end program.  If you go to www.sourceforge.com and
search for "wincvs", you'll find the "The CvsGui project" with
MFC C++ sourcecode for calling CVS and other things that will
help tie CVS into a front-end.  A popular front end, WinCVS,
should be at http://www.wincvs.org, but that site seems down today.

There are a number of features we need that (I think) CVS does not offer
'out of the box'.  These are:

1. Unofficial/Official flag.  When files are submitted, they are
unofficial.  Once they're released, they're official.  Or turn this around,
and once files are official (ie, certified), they're released.


This could be managed with CVS branches.  One branch, the unofficial,
can be updated by anyone. The other, the official, is read-only.
The LDRAW Overlord Government is responsible for approving parts,
and moves them from one branch to the other.  When you get files
with CVS, it can insert comments in the files that say which
branch the files came from.

2. Certification process.  After files are submitted, they need to be
peer-reviewed.  After they're peer-reviewed and OK'ed, they can be
auto-included in the next update cycle.


CVS lets you find out "what is new" in a repository.  For instance,
the command "cvs diff -rFEB2001_RELEASE *.dat" would show me all files
that are different since the febuary 2001 release (I assuming I tagged
the files with the FEB2001_RELEASE label at the time of the release).
I'm afraid CVS doesn't give you any additional help in organizing
peer-review, although I'll see if source-forge's bug tracking
abilities can be of use.


3. File-checking.  When files are submitted, they should be auto-checked
for syntactic problems.

You'll need a front-end for this.

I think a small script running "l3p -check" called from within the CVS
commitinfo file would work great for this.


A couple of issues with using CVS in development with the Parts Tracker
are: (remember, I've got no experience with CVS; some of these could be
ignorance)

1. NIH.  Discount this one if you want.  Or call it 'unfamiliarity with CVS
causes project to be more complicated rather than less'.

I've been using CVS for a few years now.  It is complicated, but only
because the tasks involved are complicated.  The big advantage is
being able to find out what is new and what has changed
(and who changed it).


2. CVS gives us functionality that is nice to have, but not required for
the PT.

STeve



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: We need an update NOW (Was: Parts Update?)
 
(...) I'll go look up the discussion. I'm just getting back into the swing of things. I think CVS would be a great way of distributing the parts. There's clearly some managment tools needed to help with organizing the submissions and reviews of new (...) (24 years ago, 3-May-01, to lugnet.cad.dev)

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