[svnbook] r3881 committed - * src/en/book/ch04-branching-and-merging.xml...

[C. Michael Pilato]

On 07/07/2011 08:02 PM, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
>> Modified: /trunk/src/en/book/ch04-branching-and-merging.xml
>>
>> =======================================
>> --- /trunk/src/en/book/ch04-branching-and-merging.xml	Tue Jul  5 09:25:22 2011
>> +++ /trunk/src/en/book/ch04-branching-and-merging.xml	Tue Jul  5 10:14:12 2011
>> @@ -198,10 +198,10 @@
>>          copy, this technique isn't recommended.  It can be quite slow,
>>          in fact!  Copying a directory on the client side is a
>>          linear-time operation, in that it actually has to duplicate
>> +        every file and subdirectory within that working copy directory
>> +        on the local disk.  Copying a directory on the server,
>> +        however, is a constant-time operation, and it's the way most
>> +        people create branches.</para>
> 
> May want to underline that the server-side storage is O(1) regardless of
> how the copy is committed.

Good suggestion, but while you can't tell it from the context provided in
this diff, the very next section of the book is a sidebar about "cheap
copies" which more-or-less describes what you suggest.  :-)

In reality, it's very, very easy to have not-so-cheap copies if you use
WC-based copy operations in mixed-revision working copies.  I'd rather not
leave users with any reason to believe that 'svn copy URL URL' isn't
hands-down the best way to make branches.

-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato at red-bean.com> | http://cmpilato.blogspot.com/