[cvsnt] CVS v. CVSNT

Fri Jul 16 15:16:17 BST 2004

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: cvsnt-bounces at cvsnt.org [mailto:cvsnt-bounces at cvsnt.org] On Behalf Of
Oliver Giesen
>Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 1:50 AM
>To: cvsnt at cvsnt.org cvsnt downloads at march-hare.com @CVSNT on Twitter CVSNT on Facebook
>Subject: Re: [cvsnt] CVS v. CVSNT
>
>Siegfried Heintze wrote:
>> Since I just went thru hell because of some glaring problems with the
>> documentation (specifically the cvsnt chm file)
>
>I'm not at all saying the docs are not in need of improvement/update but 
>I wonder what exactly those glaring problems you had were? 

>AFAICT from 
>the discussion so far your main (sole?) problem was that you were mixing 
>Cygwin and CVSNT clients which as we now know won't work as Cygwin 
>simulates *ix-file system behaviour while CVSNT knows it's running on 
>Windows and expects files to behave like that too. The only allusion you 
>made to the docs in this context so far was that you were using the 
>Cygwin bash because the docs were continually referring to Unix-style 
>paths and shell syntax. Maybe this would be a bit more comprehensible if 
>you understand about the history of that document: It was forged 
>directly from the original "Cederqvist", i.e. the standard manual for 
>the original CVS which AFAIK was written when CVS still ran on Unix 
>only. 

Yes that is no surprise. I explained this before in the earlier posting. I
will explain it again for you. There are two problems that I found very
upsetting.

(1) The init command in the chm file uses unix style forward slashes (with
no device name) so that it is what I used and it worked just fine with the
login, ls, import and many other commands so I never suspected it was the
init command.

(2) I could not (still cannot) find reference anywhere that I need to run
the CVSNT service control panel and define the repositories and that I
should use the default forward slashes here with a device name and that the
name of the repository should match what I specify in CVSROOT. I spent many
hours trying to understand why  cvs -d
:pserver:Siegfried at 192.168.0.8/c:\REPOSITORY does not work! It sees the ":"
and thinks you are trying to specify a port number.

(3) Lastly it seems like a perfectly innocent mistake to me that I installed
cygwin first and therefore the cygwin CVS client was in my path.

I AM REALLY UPSET THAT I LOST MANY, MANY HOURS! I'm glad to have it working
now. (Or, at least I hope it is working -- I still have not figured out how
to delete that old repository and start over). Thanks to Glen and Tony for
sticking with me on this.

So am I stupid or are there glaring omissions? I'm looking at the chm file
presently and I cannot find the omissions I'm talking about. Should not they
be there? Is not the chm file the logical place to look? I don't recall
seeing them on the Wiki page either.

How is a beginner like me supposed to know when to use forward slashes and
when to use backward slashes?

Perhaps I still don't have it right so please correct me.

I think what the document needs is a quick start section for new
installations that explains the steps of using init to create a repository,
running the service control panel to define it and then using import to
populate it. The former and the later are there, but not in the same section
so it makes it harder to follow for the first time user. 

>Furthermore
>After all CVSNT does run on *ix too so none of that is actually 
>wrong. What's missing in many places of the doc are extended 
>descriptions of Windows-specific stuff and differences or at least hints 
>to the effect that the shell syntax and standard paths would be slightly 
>different there or at least a clear note saying that all the examples 
>refer to *ix.
>
>
> > perhaps I should volunteer
>> to correct them.
>
>You are of course more than welcome to do so, even though I'm still not 
>sure there's anything to "correct". "Enhance" and "complete" would be 
>more like it I think.
>
>Cheers,
>
>