Present Perfect

Over the last few years I was using CVS not only for a bunch of personal projects, but also for keeping logs of how I configure certain machines, spec files for packages for submission to Fedora, my own packages, GStreamer packages, config files, patches to other projects, small test applications...

A few months ago, the apestaart server got moved physically, then transferred to a new machine. A good week after that, I did some GStreamer packaging, and I couldn't update from the server anymore. I thought it was just a matter of switching CVS Root. But no. Log in to server. No /home/cvs.

And the old server was still accessible, but had most things already wiped. So, a good four/five years of history gone :/

Of course, I've already suffered a more traumatizing experience with data loss in the past, so emotionally I was just about able to cope with this one.

The experience has two upsides. First of all, this has definitely swung the karma balance between our sysadmin, Wiebe, and me clearly over to me. He's picked me up a bunch of times at the airport, offering on his own initiative, which is a definate treat. One of those times was after midnight, so I was in the red. Not anymore now. Which, after last month's mole weekend (more later), has left me with a nice Belgacom shirt.

The other upside is that, given that I had to start from scratch, I finally jumped to subversion. I tell you, switching to subversion is a lot easier if you don't have a CVS repository to run cvs2svn on. Coupled with a nice trac install, the public bits are now easily browsable. You can probably even file issues, just like you can for this guy.

Now the hard part is logging in to 10+ machines, comparing the local CVS checkout's copy (which can have local modifications) to this new repository checkout and deciding which bits to keep...

Over the last few years I was using CVS not only for a bunch of personal projects, but also for keeping logs of how I configure certain machines, spec files...