{Work in progress}

This is the goals list for SVMS (Source Version Management System).

SVMS Goals

The goals of SVMS are broken into:

• Version Management Goals
• Project Management Goals
• Explicit Non-Goals

Version Management Goals

• Implement those portions of SCCS/RCS that I actually use.
• Support textual files:
  • Do not require a terminating new-line in textual files.
  • Support Unix style text files (line-feed only) or Microsoft style text files (carriage-return and line-feed). A control-Z at the end of Microsoft text files.
  • No limit on length of a line.
  • Arbitrary binary characters permitted in any line.
  • Provide a listing that identifies which delta introduced each line in a file.
• Support binary files.
• Support symbolic links.
• Support executable shell scripts.
• Support deleted files.
• Support file renaming. It is acceptable to model a rename as a file deletion and file creation.
• With the exception of merge operations, all all file operations are append only.
• Support branching for project management.
• Support version identifiers:
  • Do not reserve any magic character sequence for version identifiers (i.e. no "%Z%").
  • Support most of the identifiers from SCCS.
• Support extraction:
  • Explicit named version
  • Date based version.
  • Latest version.
• Provide for named deltas.
• Provide for delta comments:
  • Allow comments to be edited after the fact.
  • Allow comment listing.
• Work with generic Makefiles:
  • Generate a Makefile stub for getting at all source files under SVMS control.
• Do not require a special directory to store delta's in. (I.e. no SCCS directory.)
• Provide listing operations:
  • List all open files.
  • List all deleted files.
  • List all files under SVMS control.
• Allow deltas to be taken without causing any modifications. (I.e. do not force gratuitous rebuilds.)
• Provide for light-weight deltas of the files in a directory.
• Support delta deletion.
• Support directory cleaning.
• Provide easy help.
• Provide file locking.
• Slow stupid conversion utilities for SCCS/RCS will be provided.
• All functionality is available from a STIPPLE library.

Project Management Goals

• A merge operation (i.e. bringover or putback) will take time proportional to the amount of changes. No global directory scan is required.
• Directory renaming, creation, and deletion is to be explicitly supported. This includes changing a file name from a directory, to regular file and back.
• Named releases are to be supported.
• If available, a common ancestor file merge is to be used to resolve conflicts.
• A merge operation between two machines connected with a narrow pipe should be supported.
• Parent/child relationships between projects should be supported but not mandatory.
• Sub-projects (i.e. slices) should be supported.
• Directory deletion, renaming and creation should be supported.
• Directory symbolic links should be supported.
• Merging of different projects should be supported.
• Lazy bringover should be supported (i.e. only bringover the files that actually changed.)
• Merge operations should preserve delta comments.
• Light-weight project snap-shots should be supported.
• Project wide lists should be supported:
  • List all open files.
  • List comment history across all files.
• Files do not need to be closed to perform a merge operation.
• Bringovers and putbacks via tape (i.e. sneaker-net) should be supported.
• Bringovers and putbacks via HTTP should be supported.
• Secure bringovers and putbacks via the net will be supported.
• Automatic construction of index.html files should be supported.
• All functionality is available from a STIPPLE library.

Explicit Non-Goals

• Does not need to work on memory constrained systems (e.g. DOS).
• Does not need to work on systems with restrictive file systems (e.g. DOS/WIN 3.1).
• Absolute minimization of disk space in delta files is not required.
• Binary file storage does not have to be very efficient at all.
• No graphical user interfaces are needed; a command line based solution is acceptable.

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