[cvsnt] RE: [cvsgui] Anyone used MKS Source Integrity Enterprise Edition?

[Merrill Cornish]

Oliver,

>>> You do not have to be an admin to define modules

However, I believe you have to have access to CVSROOT, don't you.  In our case, the CVSROOT is on a dedicated Linux CVS server where only the admin has access.  Basically, if we can't do it via WinCvs or Tortorise, we can't do it.

Also, in reading Open Source Developement with CVS, it speaks as if a module defines a subset of file _in_the_repository_ rather than a subset of file in the file system.  Doesn't this mean that in the most general case you would need to have the _entire_ file system in the CVS repository so that modules could pick and choose what files they want to include?


>>> you could not (sensibly) manage files in various scattered locations within a single module. So far I haven't met a real-life scenario where this would have been necessary.

Unfortunately, it was the _first_ real-life situations I ran into when trying to use CVS.  I had created a JSP web application.  The JSP files are all nicely in one directory tree, so no problem there.  However, the application required a dedicated MySQL instance, which, in turn, had a custom .ini file.  

Proper source control says that the MySQL .ini file should be versioned along with all of the JSP files.  However, MySQL requires the .ini file to either be in C:\ or C:\Windows.  CVS could not handle the "outlying" file.


>>> These are all perfectly doable using modules definitions.

Can the user do it without access to CVSROOT?  Can it be done with one of the GUI interfaces?


>>> That's kind of the point of doing an update, isn't it?

No need to be scarcastic.  I've got 3+ decades of software experience and have used a number of source control systems.  I'm perfectly aware of what an update is for.

The problem is in finding out _before_ the merge what has been changed.  When would I launch Source Integrity each morning, the icons would tell me what files have changed. _Then_ I could decide what to do about it.  As nearly as I can tell, the main way in CVS to find out what is going to change is to _do_ the change.  Even then, the what's-changed information is in a mass of scrolled text.

How would you find out what's changed with WinCvs or Tortorise?

Merrill