Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!ncar!umigw!steve
From: steve@umigw.MIAMI.EDU (steve emmerson)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Source Code Control
Message-ID: <357@umigw.MIAMI.EDU>
Date: 25 Jun 89 16:32:20 GMT
References: <791@redsox.bsw.com>
Reply-To: steve@umigw.miami.edu (steve emmerson)
Organization: Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
Lines: 21

In article <791@redsox.bsw.com>, Larry Campbell <campbell@redsox.UUCP> 
describes a possible methodology for configuration management using the
"state" attribute of individual RCS files.  In the description, an
example is given in which a bug-fixed module is "back-dated" into an 
already released version.

IMHO, this should be done with extreme caution --- if at all.  If one
updates a module, but still associates it with a previous version of the
total package, then one has effectively by-passed the primary purpose
of a configuration management system: namely, to unambiguously bind a
release to a set of modules.

It would be better, IMHO, to increment the release level (i.e. "state")
of all other modules --- regardless of the difficulty of doing so.

(Please accept my aplogies if I've misunderstood the referenced article).
-- 
Steve Emmerson                     Inet: steve@umigw.miami.edu [128.116.10.1]
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"Computers are like God in the Old Testament: lots of rules and no mercy"