> Has the maxima project ever considered moving to SVN?
> What do you think about moving to SVN?
i've given this some thought, and i don't think it's a good idea for maxima.
svn is promoted as a "better cvs" but unfortunately that is just not so,
because for whatever reason svn gave up symbolic revision identifiers
(tags in cvs).
there are at least 2 good reasons for tags -- one is that the tags
for a file give a useful overview of the history of a file within the project.
there is no straightforward way in svn to answer questions like "in which
release of the project did this file first appear?"
the other is that using a symbolic name obviates the need to know
revision numbers. there is a standard workaround: browse the revision
log to determine the revision number and then use the number.
i'm sorry, that's simply needless busywork.
on the plus side, svn groups files into revisions, and directories can
be versioned as well as files. these are both useful features.
on the whole, i think svn is not much more useful than cvs.
switching to svn would also mean substantial pain & suffering to
get all the developers up to speed.
for what it's worth,
robert dodier