Re: ada writing guide

[Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>]

"Samuel T. Harris" wrote:

> Any version control system which allows Fred to simply check-out
> the file without warning him that his content is no longer
> based on the latest version is seriously broken! This is a
> basic access control feature. If you want this protection,
> then support of this feature becames a primary tool selection
> requirement!

(Sigh). You are talking about a different revision control setup than I was
in the quoted post (one in which the latest source is always visible, unless
a local copy is checked out for editing). I addressed the (CVS) style you are
referring to in another post. Suffice to say, the problem still exists in the
setup you are talking about too (unless you have some kind of revision
control system that notices that emacs has an obsolete copy loaded in its
internal buffer).

It seems like a lot of heat is getting generated on this issue due to
misunderstandings about how different revision control systems work. The
tragic part of this is that it doesn't matter at all what style of RCS you
are using. We are *not* talking about external files here, but a buffer
internal to emacs that never again gets checked against the file it was
loaded from. No gyration done with external files can *possibly* solve this
problem.

Clearly the right solution to this problem (emacs checking the file for
changes before writing it back out), has already been arrived at and
implemented. So I don't see much point in continuing to sit here and argue
over whether the problem exists. If the maintainer of the emacs ada mode saw
that it exsits, and thought it was enough of a problem that it warranted
fixing by the next revision, that's good enough for me.

If anyone still feels compelled to continue this discussion, please at least
do me the service of writing down your own scenario that shows how this won't
be a problem. I feel like I'm swinging at the wind here.

--
T.E.D.

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