[Python-Dev] PEP: Migrating the Python CVS to Subversion

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 08:28 PM 8/4/2005 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>BTW, in one of your replies I read that you had a problem with
>how cvs2svn handles trunk, branches and tags. In reality, this
>is no problem at all, since Subversion is very good at handling
>moves within the repository: you can easily change the repository
>layout after the import to whatevery layout you see fit - without
>losing any of the version history.

Yeah, in my use of SVN I find that this is more theoretical than actual for 
certain use cases.  You can see the history of a file including the history 
of any file it was copied from.  However, if you want to try to look at the 
whole layout, you can't easily get to the old locations.  This can be a 
royal pain, whereas at least in CVS you can use viewcvs to show you the 
"attic".  Subversion doesn't have an attic, which makes looking at 
structural history very difficult.

That having been said, I generally like Subversion, I just know that when I 
moved my projects to it I felt it was worth taking extra care to convert 
them in a way that didn't require me to reorganize the repository 
immediately thereafter, because I didn't want a sudden discontinuity, 
beyond which history would be difficult to follow.

Therefore, I'm saying that taking some care with the conversion process to 
get things the way we like them would be a good idea.