[slime-devel] Re: SLIME Committers

[Helmut Eller]

* Edi Weitz [2006-11-21 08:12+0100] writes:

>> Does usage of plain old CVS hold back SLIME development in any way?

The desire to move to some "modern" versioning system was mentioned
several times on this list.  So, CVS might be a problem for some
people.  I guess, for those without commit rights.

* Nikodemus Siivola [2006-11-21 10:50+0100] writes:

> While I'm not dead set against moving to Darcs, can someone please
> tell me how it will make Slime hacking better?
>
> A real workflow example or two would be good.

You can put the repo on your laptop and continue hacking Slime in your
favorite bar/park/sauna :-)

On the technical side, Darcs should make operations like diff and
annotate faster.  Also deleting directories would be supported.  But
after hearing Edi's and your comment about Windows/PPC issues and the
obvious problems with the converters, I have the impression that Darcs
hasn't yet reached "product quality".

> Since Slime would still (I assume) work on a central repository model,
> I don't see a huge benefit -- but maybe that just shows my relative
> inexperience with Darcs.

On the social side, it should be easier to maintain forks.  We had
some unpleasant experiences with people who were, well, less than
happy when we didn't commit their patches.  With Darcs we could at
least say: "Maintain your private branch until your stuff is more
mature; it's easy".  I, for one, am unhappy that Slime has so many
features which I don't use/like/understand.  If maintaining a fork
were easy, I'd remove fuzzy-completion, presentations, and every line
of code that spills across the 80th column.  But it's probably to much
to ask for a tool to solve social problems.

Helmut.