CVS $Log$ alternative

[Lester Caine]

Mads Kiilerich wrote:
> On 10/27/2010 01:44 PM, Martin Geisler wrote:
>> Markus Korber<korbse at gmx.at> writes:
>>
>>> Thus spake Martin Geisler:
>>>
>>>> Markus Korber<korbse at gmx.at> writes:
>>>>
>>>>>> Markus Korber<korbse at gmx.at> writes:
>>>>
>>>>>>> is there a possibility to get the commit log messages into the
>>>>>>> revisioned file? Something like CVS' $Log$ keyword? hg help
>>>>>>> keyword says that the $Log$ keyword is not supported.
>>>>
>>>> Why would you want the log in the file in the first place?
>>>
>>> It's a customer requirement to keep the file's change history in the
>>> file itself.
>>
>> I see, then I'll stop trying to talk you out of it :)
>
> The fact that it is a customer requirement doesn't make it a better
> idea. The more loyal you are to the customer the harder you should fight
> against it. With a DVCS there is a much better solution at hand than
> including the log inside the files.
>
> If the customer wants CVS, he should use CVS. Mercurial makes it easy to
> do the right thing, but it makes no effort to make it easy to do stupid
> things, and it might thus not be a good solution for this customer.

Mercurial is only usable if the target customers can ACTUALLY use it. USING it 
to deploy applications does not work, so what IS needed is exactly what is being 
asked for ... some means of deploying a log along with the distributed 
application. The customer just NEEDS to know that they have the right set of 
files without having to load and manage yet another application simply to check 
that? This is the major headache with both hg and git ... people trying to say 
that you only need DVCS when in reality this is only practical for development. 
PLEASE stop saying that we should use CVS when THAT has nothing to do with 
solving the problem of reliable USABLE deployment from HG!

The correct solution HAS been discussed and that is packaging the distribution 
via archive ... now we just need that to actually work with sub-repo's as well?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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