Simplified Tutorial

[Olaf Conradi]

On 06/05/06, Erik Bågfors <zindar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/6/06, Ramon Diaz-Uriarte <rdiaz02 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 05/05/06, Erik Bågfors <zindar at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > A shared repository is a storage that can contain multiple branches.
> > > By putting the branches in a shared repository, they will use the same
> > > storage for things that are the same between different branches.  It
> > > is recommended to keep related branches in a shared repository.
> > >
> > > Branches in bzr can also be standalone, in this case, each branch does
> > > not share the same storage.
> > >
> > > The setup described in this document is where you have one centralized
> > > shared repository on a central server. This repository is then used by
> > > all developers.  In this setup, each developer needs to be able to
> >
> > In the last paragraph, does "shared" have the meaning of "shared by
> > several users" or "shared because there are several branches". If the
> > later, why/how does that relate to  the cvs/svn-like usage.
>
> Shared between several branches, they may or may not also be shared
> between several users, but so may standalone branches. In the example
> above, it's both.
>
> In svn-terms a shared repository is what's also called a repository in
> svn, and a branch is "trunk", or "branches/foobranch".  In CVS it's
> harder, because CVS sucks :)

This nicely demonstrates James Blackwell's point that "shared" in
"shared repository" is not a great name to use. As shared is often
interpreted by users as "shared between users" and not "shared by
branches".

The same ambiguity might be found in JAM's tutotial, but he hides it a
bit. Wherever he uses repository it's a shared repository. He mentions
branches sharing a repository and all other uses of shared refer to
shared locations, as in sharing among users for publishing.

But when users read bzr help init-repo later on, it says it will
create a shared repository. I can imagine a users gets confused and
thinks this is only useful for centralized revision control. So not
mentioning that branches sharing a repository is called a shared
repository in the bzr ui, might be just as confusing.

On 5/5/06, John Arbash Meinel <john at arbash-meinel.com> wrote:
> * Repository Branch: With Bzr it is possible to have branches share
>  their history data. This is especially useful for projects that
>  create lots of branches (such as short-lived feature branches).
>  This is done by creating a Repository (``bzr init-repo``). Future
>  branches that are created in subdirectories will all store their
>  historical information in the same location.
>  Merging between branches that share the same repository is very
>  fast, since no information needs to be copied.

So this is about shared repositories.

> Using Repositories
> ------------------
> Create a remote repository for archiving and sharing your branches,
> and a local repository to reduce the need to copy information around.

Where both local and remote repositories are "shared repositories" and
the remote one is used for archiving and publishing. But using sharing
in the context of "archiving and sharing" makes one associate the word
sharing with "sharing among users", which might confuse users if they
read about "shared repository".

 -Olaf