module-build-general

[Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Ken W. <ke...@ma...>]

Hi listies,

I've secured a free 50-developer license to use Perforce for 
open-source work (see 
http://www.perforce.com/perforce/price.html#opensource ), and I think 
it looks pretty good.  For those who don't know, perl core development 
has been using perforce for several years.  It's *not* an open-source 
product, but anyone can download client programs for free.

I'd like to eventually move Module::Build development to perforce.  I 
can import the CVS history from the sourceforge project.  I've set up a 
server in my house on my DSL line.  Not real heavy-duty, but it should 
suffice.

Any objections?

  -Ken

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Dave R. <au...@ur...>]

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Ken Williams wrote:

> I've secured a free 50-developer license to use Perforce for
> open-source work (see
> http://www.perforce.com/perforce/price.html#opensource ), and I think
> it looks pretty good.  For those who don't know, perl core development
> has been using perforce for several years.  It's *not* an open-source
> product, but anyone can download client programs for free.
>
> I'd like to eventually move Module::Build development to perforce.  I
> can import the CVS history from the sourceforge project.  I've set up a
> server in my house on my DSL line.  Not real heavy-duty, but it should
> suffice.
>
> Any objections?

I for one prefer to use free software when possible.  What's so great
about Perforce that we shouldn't use it instead of Arch, Subversion, or
one of a bazillion other free alternatives?


-dave

/*=======================
House Absolute Consulting
www.houseabsolute.com
=======================*/

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Elizabeth M. <li...@di...>]

At 22:30 -0600 12/21/03, Dave Rolsky wrote:
>On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Ken Williams wrote:
>  > I'd like to eventually move Module::Build development to perforce.  I
>  > can import the CVS history from the sourceforge project.  I've set up a
>  > server in my house on my DSL line.  Not real heavy-duty, but it should
>  > suffice.
>  > Any objections?
>I for one prefer to use free software when possible.  What's so great
>about Perforce that we shouldn't use it instead of Arch, Subversion, or
>one of a bazillion other free alternatives?

I know that Subversion has been tried for the Ponie project.  I think 
I can still hear Arthur scream whenever Subversion gets mentioned. 
It was particularly difficult to get any performance out of it with a 
relatively large number of branches.

I don't know about the bazillion other free alternatives.


Liz

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Iain T. <tmd...@de...>]

* Elizabeth Mattijsen (li...@di...) [22 Dec 2003 20:23]:

[...]
> I know that Subversion has been tried for the Ponie
> project. I think I can still hear Arthur scream whenever
> Subversion gets mentioned. It was particularly difficult
> to get any performance out of it with a relatively large
> number of branches.

Not that M::B will have quite so many branches as Perl.


cheers,
-- 
Iain.

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Autrijus T. <aut...@au...>]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 09:29:18PM +1100, Iain Truskett wrote:
> * Elizabeth Mattijsen (li...@di...) [22 Dec 2003 20:23]:
> [...]
> > I know that Subversion has been tried for the Ponie
> > project. I think I can still hear Arthur scream whenever
> > Subversion gets mentioned. It was particularly difficult
> > to get any performance out of it with a relatively large
> > number of branches.
> 
> Not that M::B will have quite so many branches as Perl.

Blatant plug:  I've been using svk for a while to monitor
6 svn repositories (4 of which I also commit to), and in
addition to its bitkeeper-like offline working ability,
I also find svk to be much faster than svn's command line
client, approaching the speed of p4.

And since it's written in pure perl, it's also easily
hackable. :-)

    http://svk.elixus.org/

Thanks,
/Autrijus/

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Dave R. <au...@ur...>]

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Elizabeth Mattijsen wrote:

> At 22:30 -0600 12/21/03, Dave Rolsky wrote:
> >On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Ken Williams wrote:
> >  > I'd like to eventually move Module::Build development to perforce.  I
> >  > can import the CVS history from the sourceforge project.  I've set up a
> >  > server in my house on my DSL line.  Not real heavy-duty, but it should
> >  > suffice.
> >  > Any objections?
> >I for one prefer to use free software when possible.  What's so great
> >about Perforce that we shouldn't use it instead of Arch, Subversion, or
> >one of a bazillion other free alternatives?
>
> I know that Subversion has been tried for the Ponie project.  I think
> I can still hear Arthur scream whenever Subversion gets mentioned.
> It was particularly difficult to get any performance out of it with a
> relatively large number of branches.

I don't think it was the number of branches so much as the very large size
of the repository (Perl + Parrot).  But that won't be a problem here.


-dave

/*=======================
House Absolute Consulting
www.houseabsolute.com
=======================*/

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Nicholas C. <ni...@cc...>]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 10:23:15AM +0100, Elizabeth Mattijsen wrote:
> At 22:30 -0600 12/21/03, Dave Rolsky wrote:
> >On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Ken Williams wrote:
> > > I'd like to eventually move Module::Build development to perforce.  I
> > > can import the CVS history from the sourceforge project.  I've set up a
> > > server in my house on my DSL line.  Not real heavy-duty, but it should
> > > suffice.
> > > Any objections?
> >I for one prefer to use free software when possible.  What's so great
> >about Perforce that we shouldn't use it instead of Arch, Subversion, or
> >one of a bazillion other free alternatives?
> 
> I know that Subversion has been tried for the Ponie project.  I think 
> I can still hear Arthur scream whenever Subversion gets mentioned. 
> It was particularly difficult to get any performance out of it with a 
> relatively large number of branches.

My understanding is that the performance issues have been attacked with
considerable vigour since then, and it's now quite a lot faster.
I've found no problems with using it (as a client) on other projects.
However, it's still moving, and they quite openly don't yet guarantee much
backwards (binary) compatibility between minor versions.

What no-one's yet mentioned is that perforce require you to renew the licence
annually. I'm aware of 2 perl projects using perforce who were caught out by
their licence running out, at which point they are locked out of their
entire repository. Perforce seemed quite speedy in renewing the licence
(considerably faster than the times officially promised) but this
understandable desire of perforce to verify that they are not being conned
results in frustrating beaurocracy.

Nicholas Clark

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Ken W. <ke...@ma...>]

On Sunday, December 21, 2003, at 10:30  PM, Dave Rolsky wrote:
>
> I for one prefer to use free software when possible.

Me too, definitely.  However, I also have a goal of supporting 
commercial companies that support open source work.  I appreciate 
perforce's move to making their product free for open source work, and 
I think that if it's a better product the community can benefit from 
using it.  And I tend to believe (I think) that open-source tools can 
achieve better "market penetration" if the companies that assist the 
movement can actually find ways to make The Big Bucks in doing so.

Note that there are a lot of tools (API perl modules, conversion 
scripts, editor support, web repository browsers, bugzilla cooperation, 
etc.) that they release open source, and the only software that's 
actually for-pay is the server binary (I think).


> What's so great
> about Perforce that we shouldn't use it instead of Arch, Subversion, or
> one of a bazillion other free alternatives?

The two main things are that they have atomic commits of multiple 
files, and it's stable enough that they can get people to pay for it.

They also integrate a job management (i.e. bug tracking) system in with 
the software, which I'd like to use, or at least try using.

But another thing is that everyone I talk to who's used it seems to 
like it, which is probably worth a lot.

  -Ken

Re: [Module::Build] Moving to perforce?

[Nicholas C. <ni...@cc...>]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 01:46:55PM -0600, Ken Williams wrote:

> But another thing is that everyone I talk to who's used it seems to 
> like it, which is probably worth a lot.

It is nice.
The two things I know that it can't do are

1: If you create a file as part of one submit, and then change it as part of
   a subsequent submit, you can't integrate both "changes" onto another
   branch as part of a single submit. I've been bitten by this twice in the
   past 3 months - it's a strange deficiency.

2: You can't back out an integration. There's a FAQ item about how to do it -
   ie kludge it. (p4 edit the relevant files, get the (forwards) diff,
   patch -R, submit)
   This sucks, because it's as if you did a local edit in that branch, which
   means you can't (re)integrate the change, and any subsequent changes to
   that area of code will become conflicts between the two branches.

Obviously these two are irritating if you're trying to merge changes over
from perl 5.9.x to perl 5.8.x

Nicholas Clark