[Adium-devl] Version Control - To change or not to change? THAT is the question!

[Chris Forsythe]

On Jan 2, 2008, at 7:54 AM, Eric Richie wrote:

> > 2.4.1. Revision numbers
> > With SVN, there is a simple revision number that represents the  
> state of the
> > system at a given point.  In our case, this is a 5 digit number  
> which grows
> > incrementally over time.  Due to the restrictions of working in a
> > distributed system, the DVCS systems typically adopt use of a  
> date/time or
> > MD5 hash, which is not as user friendly.
>
> Non-issue. I very rarely deal with the SHA-1 hashes that Git use,
> because it supplies so many other ways of referring to different
> revisions. For example, "master~3" refers to the 3rd-level parent of
> the current tip of the master branch. Git also has lightweight
> tagging, so you can just throw tags onto whichever revisions you care
> about if you have to manipulate particular revisions repeatedly.
>
> You might not have to deal with revision numbers but we do.  This  
> definitely is an issue in terms of support more than anything (and  
> also factors into the trac integration issue.)  With human readable  
> revisions numbers you can look at a ticket that says "I'm using  
> 1.2svn rxxxxx" and say to yourself "ah, that's from a week ago and  
> we worked on [feature] yesterday so this may already be fixed"  
> versus reading "I'm on revision  
> lkh3k2j442kj34g4h532jehk42kb345h34578eft78dfgdhbn" and thinking to  
> yourself "that's nice...".  I've found the revision numbers that  
> mtn creates for pidgin to be nearly unusable.  Tagging does nothing  
> for this.  And if it also breaks trac compatibility (and thus the  
> ability to easily reference/view a revision) we're going to need to  
> figure out another way because that would be a significant loss and  
> make triaging and troubleshooting an issue that much more of a hassle.


My understanding is that bzr allows you to choose the revision number  
style you would like, but I don't have time to confirm this. Can  
someone confirm this, and also add it to the grid on the wiki?

Chris