[cvsnt] Re: Question about tagging.

[JasonWisener]

Hmmmm....
I understand what you are saying Glen about expectations and process
improvement, I am definitely on your side there ;)

But we have someone that worked at a company that states they had used cvs
to provide this type of configurability . He stated that the system allowed
them to "tag" features and then when the build master got ready to build,
he/she could simply pull a list of tags and then build all of that together.
Seems like it could be possible?

For example, If  developerA was going to work on a feature, then developerA
would get an identifier (FE-1) such that all changes could
be associated/grouped (CVS tag, maybes he/she moves the tag throughout the
changes).

Then if another developerB was going to work on another feature he/she would
get a unique identifier as well (FE-2) and tag also (perhaps moving the tag
throughout the changes as well).

So, if I was going to do the build, would it be possible for me to ask CVS
give all files that are at tagged FE-1, and also give me all files that are
tagged FE-2 and besure to merge the two overlaps together into the build
sandbox: For example if developerA changed foo.c as part of FE-1, and
developerB changed foo.c as part of FE-2, (no conflicts), can I get both
changes into foo.c when I'm about to do a build?

How do people do this, surely there is a way. How do you pull out
"feature-X" from a system before releasing (Maybe feature-X is broken) and
you don't want to release that part of it.

thanks,
-jw.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Glen Starrett" <grstarrett at cox.net>
Newsgroups: support.cvsnt
To: <cvsnt at cvsnt.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2004 10:19 PM
Subject: [cvsnt] Re: Question about tagging.


> JasonWisener wrote:
>
> > The company I am currently working with is in the process of
> > switching from vss to cvs. One of the situations I have is as
> > follows:
> >
> > We have a "quick changing environment". So we may have developers
> > working on 5 different features to our product. We would like to be
> > able to pick and choose which features are to be included in a
> > particular release. It seems that from the documentation I've been
> > reading it is recommeded to allow development to continue on the
> > "main trunk"; however, that is the problem we are having with vss.
> > The 5 features/changes are inter-mixed together and impossible to
> > split back out. If the manager says we are to pull out feature X, how
> > does one go about finding all the changes that went with feature X?
> > Could this be accomplished with CVS tagging?
>
> I think you already know the answer, after using the words "impossible" :)
>
> >
> > It looks like the only way I see doing this is to branch for each
> > feature. Then it could be merged into the main trunk when the manager
> > says, "we need do a early release, and I want to include feature 1, 2
> > & 3 but leave out feature 4 & 5". Note the features would be
> > independent of each other.
>
> That would certainly work, but be a major PITA.  It sounds like you
> might do better reworking your development methodologies (and educating
> your managers).
>
> Tagging in CVS does one of two things:  create a branch or identifies a
> point in time.  Neither will do the impossible, but branching would
> certainly help if there truly is no way to establish a reasonable order
> of implementation and reasonable management expectations.  Often though
> there is some interdependence with added features, especially when mixed
> like you describe.
>
> >
> > Can anyone recommed or point me in the right direction on how to
> > accomplish this type of configurability using CVS? Can I even
> > accomplish this with tagging?
> >
> > Thanks, Tanky Tank
>
> Good luck :)
>
> -- 
> Glen Starrett
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