Re: Math library

[Norbert Nemec]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2001 at 07:02:15PM +1200, Keith Hopper wrote:
> In article <address@hidden>,
>    Darren J Wilkinson <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > I vote
> > myself, Keith and Nobbi to the group, together with anyone else who is
> > interested!
> 
> Seriously, count me out as far as the algorithms and design work go.  What
> I suspect might be useful is a look at not re-inventing the NAG library!
> I am quite happy to review written code - even if someone gives me test
> programs to do some testing.
> 
> > Is there any way to set up a CVS server on the GNU site, or even
> > at Waikato? I could set one up at my place of work, but it would be a bit
> > neater for things to be held more centrally. Cheers,
> 
>      What on earth (or anywhere else) is CVS????? I know about CSV but I
> don't think you mean that.

OK, that's what I feared - if you, Keith, do not know CVS already, that will 
mean that either you would have to learn to use it (The technical part is not 
that difficult, but it also demands some discipline in source-code handling) or 
we'll have to drop the idea for the moment.

Short explanation: CVS "Concurrent Version System" is a source control system 
that is widely used in open-source projects (there are alternatives but I have 
no experience with them)

Basically, it works in such a way, that a central copy of the complete 
source-tree is stored on a special server. Now every developer who wants do 
change something in the code, has to "check out" the files, do all the changes 
in his local copy (Which contains additional information in CVS/ directories) 
and check in the sources again afterwards to the cvs-server.

Now, if two developers work on the sources at the same time, the server has to 
sort out the conflicts. If a file was only changed by one party, that's simple: 
the newer version is used. If both developers did changes to the same file, the 
one who wants to check in second will have to resolve the conflicts. He will 
get a file containing a special .diff of the three existing versions that he 
will have to edit and check in afterwards.

You see the overhead in that solution. That's why I wanted to leave it to you, 
Keith, to decide whether we should go that way. It would mean that each one who 
wants to work on the project has to have the CVS client software installed, use 
special precautions in creating, renaming and moving files and directories (The 
last one is very difficult and I would probably stop doing it in the way I did 
it up to now)

On the other hand it would mean that we will have a complete history of all 
changes that were made, could rollback to earlier versions and even branch of 
different versions like experimental stuff etc. Also, CVS is about the only way 
we could sensibly handle a large number of volunteers in the project. There 
could be a small number of people who have write access, and each could check 
in bugfixes without much need for additional communication.

What's you opinion, Keith?

Ciao,
Nobbi

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