[Discuss] CVS documentation mirror

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-06-29 14:33-0700 Adam Parkin wrote:

> I'm trying to find the online CVS "official" manual.  The first match at
> Google when searching for "CVS documentation" is the same document hosted at
> http://ximbiot.com/cvs/manual/ which is what I'm looking for (and the place
> I used to read it at), but that site seems to be down for me right now.
>
> Does anybody have a mirror for the online CVS manual?
>

Hi Adam:

Your original question got answered, but I have a supplementary one.  Why
use CVS at all?

If it is a work requirement, and you have an intransigent boss who won't
listen to reason, than I guess you are stuck, but otherwise I would advise
going with something else since CVS has so many limitations and bugs, and it
is poorly maintained (if at all) because of the large number of good
alternatives out there.

I am pretty slow to switch software myself, but finally after using CVS at
SourceForge for many years I bit the bullet and tried Subversion there
instead several months ago.  In a very short while, I was kicking myself
that I had stuck with CVS so long.  The Subversion developers really do
deliver on their stated goal of making "a compelling replacement for CVS".
This experience has convinced me that using CVS now is analogous to using a
Netscape product from 1999 rather than a modern browser.

Note, I don't want to oversell Subversion (although that is the only
alternative to CVS at SourceForge which is why I have made that choice).
There was a discussion recently on the CMake list about everybody's favorite
free software replacement for CVS, and although Subversion was mentioned, a
large number of other choices were also mention including even a
user-friendly interface to git!  So I think free software developers should
treat their choice of revision control systems very much like their choice
of text editor; they should try several until they find the one that meets
their needs the best and review that decision from time to time.

In sum, there are a lot of excellent replacements for CVS in the free
software world so there is not much point to using CVS any more.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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