Recent discussion of whether the GCC team can live with an absence
of SVN references references in a converted repository is emblematic
of a larger problem.
In this and other respects, Martin Liška's a approach is a clever
kluge that will produce a low-quality conversion. I won't tell you
not to go this route; it's your decision, and I cannot yet absolutely
rule out the possibility that even with the Go translation of
reposurgeon complete it is not a practical tool at this scale.
But I do urge you not to jump without thinking through the tradeoffs
carefully. It's a pretty classic speed-vs-quality decision.
When I get that translation done, I should be able to produce a
conversion that can be demonstrated correct even near branches with
confused metadata due to SVN operator errors, which is the big ugly
case that ad-hoc approaches like mliska's basically cannot get right -
they don't do enough global analysis to resolve the defects.
It is unfortunately true that I don't know when I'll be able to do
this. I think the odds that I will in fact be able to are 85%-90%,
but I can't predict a completion date. The surrounding problems are
genuinely hard, I'm working alone on this, and I have to spend a lot of
my time on work that pays bills.
Still...if you opt for a quick, inexact conversion, do it with your
eyes open. There will be a price for that choice later on when you
trip over the defects that a naive approach not only doesn't fix but
can actually amplify.
--
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
"The state calls its own violence `law', but that of the individual `crime'"
-- Max Stirner
