Re: CVS and Jar files: Should you import Jar into the Repository? Why or why not

[Mark A. Flacy]

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Caley <address@hidden> writes:
Richard> 
Richard> In article <address@hidden>, Greg A Woods (gaw) writes:
gaw> With CVS and non-diff-able, non-patch-able files we're talking about
gaw> using a tool that's not even remotely suitable for the job at
gaw> hand.
Richard> 
Richard> Lets be concrete.
Richard> 
Richard> Say I have a software project consisteing of some number of
Richard> directories with text files in it. I keep this in CVS because I
Richard> want version tracking.
Richard> 
Richard> Now, someone comes along and tells me every software project needs
Richard> an icon, so this here GIF has to be part of the build. Obviously I
Richard> need to version control it in sync with the source to be able to
Richard> build old versions.

No, you need to keep track of the version of the icon used when you hit
certain release points of your software.  Do you change the icon often
during development?  Are those intermediate versions of the icon worthy of
checkpointing? 

Richard> Solution 1 is to set up some other versioning system (software or
Richard> ad-hoc) to version control the image file. This gains me nothing and
Richard> costs me support overhead and possible errors compared to solution 2.
Richard> 
Richard> Solution 2 is to check the GIF file into CVS. This gains me simplicity
Richard> and reliability and loses me nothing compared to solution 1. I can't
Richard> diff the versions of the GIF anyway, so the fact that CVS won't add
Richard> this ability is not an issue.

Solution 3 is to maintain the binary image files in another directory on
your repository machine.  Add steps to your loadbuild scripts (which should
be version controlled) to fetch the correct image and install it to the
correct place.