[RFC] Why DVCS Matters

Ian Clatworthy ian.clatworthy at internode.on.net
Thu Oct 11 11:17:09 BST 2007


I'm giving a paper later this year on why DVCS technology matters.
Elliot Murphy and Martin Pool have kindly reviewed earlier drafts but it
probably needs another round of changes before I'm ready to call it
'final'. The latest draft is online here:
http://ianclatworthy.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/why-distributed-version-control-matters/.

I'm still yet to address one of Martin's bits of feedback, namely that
"branch tracking scales better than patch tracking" isn't well
explained. Does anyone have a good reference covering that topic to save
me the effort? :-)

I'm also thinking that the topic of migration (e.g. bzr-svn, tailor,
etc.) isn't covered at all and probably needs to be, at least briefly.
The paper is up to 7 papers and a maximum of 5 pages was recommended so
I've currently left that out. Part of my thinking re dropping it is that
migration technology is very much a moving target and best practice
arguably depends a lot on source and target tools. Is it acceptable to
leave migration issues out altogether? If not, what points are important
to make?

If I'm missing references to important articles on the technology,
please also let me know. As best I know of, this is one of the few
papers that attempts to address the "why should I care when I'm happy
using central VCS" question as comprehensively as this. Given that, I'm
doubly keen to ensure it's actually factual, clear and useful to others.

Ian C.



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