[BLACKBOX] AW: [BLACKBOX] Version Control

From: Bernhardt, Gunnar <"Bernhardt,>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:34:12 +0100

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Folks,

Aubrey has drawn attention to an interesting question, for which I do not really have a satisfactory solution:

How do you do version control for your Blackbox sources?

Does any of you use a version control system like Bazaar, CVS, Subversion or a variant by Microsoft? If so, does it matter that BB files are binary files instead of plain ASCII?

Is there perhaps a BB-native solution which escaped my quick glance across zinnamturm.eu and google?

My current practice (for managing 29 source files in one subsystem) is to take a copy of the entire subsystem (in fact: a zip-file) for every <stable> state. Individual files are in between copied to a history directory and renamed. Pro: each ZIPed version runs with mostly undiscovered bugs and respresents a certain stage in development (prototype1, prototype2, alpha version...). Con: There is an abundance of files which have to be archived.


How do you handle this problem? Do you really renamed file names AND module names?

kind regards
gunnar


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: BlackBox [mailto:BLACKBOX{([at]})nowhere.xy
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 30. Dezember 2009 00:58
An: BLACKBOX{([at]})nowhere.xy
Betreff: [BLACKBOX] Version Control

Oh, I am unfocused and this will ramble. Please feel free to skip.

I have a program, Gather, that I first coded many years ago. It reads source, and understands the IMPORT assignment. I had thought it to be a mature program, that the only wrinkles in using it were documentation and user understanding issues.

I have developed a practice of keeping many versions of the source to a program as I make changes, and only saving source when I have a "clean" compile. I bump a minor version number when I work on a new aspect. This may be very minor, such as changing the definition of 1 or 2 RECORDS and propagating the necessary work through the source.

In this practice, there may be many files as time goes by. Each of these sources generates a binary of the same name, and all the sources that import it remain unchanged as I work, possibly unloading many modules then reloading them during debug.

This_01.Mod --> MODULE This; IMPORT That; END This.
This_02.Mod --> MODULE This; IMPORT That; TYPE T1*:INTEGER; END This.
This_03.Mod --> MODULE This; IMPORT That; TYPE T1*:LONGINT; END This.

So I went to use Gather in its intended purpose, to read a list of source file names and then to produce the list of all necessary and available sources in a correct compile order.

For a very discouraging moment, I thought I had found a very serious bug in a program I thought was now part of the bedrock. I gave the list of the versions I wanted, This_03.Mod, That_04.Mod. It sought out the sources This.Mod, That.Mod, and not the versions. :-(

After much reading of the source, the documentation, and running the example programs, I have decided that it actually is working as it should, but that I have always had a subtle misunderstanding of how I manage and document versions. The Gather program implies that when I release a new minor version number, the IMPORT statement of my various client programs should change, and the module name of the various library modules should also change.

(*library config 1*) MODULE This; IMPORT That := That_01; END This.
(*library config 2*) MODULE This; IMPORT That := That_02; END This.
(*library item*) MODULE That_02; END That_02.

I have not gone back into my current project to make this so. I think I am more discouraged than if my trusted program had actually been badly broken. It means that I have to change a work practice to be more clear headed. My thoughts are that this will all be more in the "Oberon" tradition, because the source will actually statically document the version that is in use. I am just rebelling in the same way I did when I had to declare variables the first time I used a Wirth language. I envision a directory that is really, really full of source and binary files of different version numbers.

Well, it is a cold and rainy day, I am drinking coffee and pondering the implications of all this. I'd love to have the wisdom of others who have worked on large and evolving projects. I may (or not) go change a lot of source files and see what I can see.

--
--
Aubrey McIntosh, Ph.D.
1502 Devon Circle
Austin TX 78723-1814
http://home.grandecom.net/~amcintosh/aubrey/Search/
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Received on Tue Jan 12 2010 - 17:34:12 UTC