Fwd: Confusing wording in manual [was: Binary diff]

[Ben Collins-Sussman]

Forwarding to this list.



Begin forwarded message:

> From: Ulrich Eckhardt <eckhardt at satorlaser.com>
> Date: July 6, 2005 3:10:38 AM CDT
> To: users at subversion.tigris.org
> Subject: Confusing wording in manual [was: Binary diff]
>
>
>> In the most general sense, Subversion handles binary files more
>> gracefully than CVS does. Because CVS uses RCS, it can only store
>> successive full copies of a changing binary file. But internally,
>> Subversion expresses differences between files using a
>> binary-differencing algorithm, ...
>>
>
> Suggestions:
>   Subversion on the other hand expresses differences between files...
>   However, Subversion expresses differences between files...
>
> There is no need to mention 'internally', as this is clearly about
> Subversion's internals.
>
>
>> ...regardless of whether they contain
>> textual or binary data. That means that all files are stored
>> differentially (compressed) in the repository, and small  
>> differences are
>> always sent over the network.
>>
>
> What is the meaning of the last part of this? Should that rather be  
> "..., and
> only the small differences are sent over the network[when  
> synchronizing]."?
> Also why does this suddenly jump to the network? All the time it  
> only talked
> about disk storage. Maybe one should start off mentioning that this  
> diffing
> not only applies to disk storage but also to network transfers, and  
> that
> CVS/RCS are for that very reason both bandwidth intensive and disk  
> intensive
> for binary files.
> Disclaimer: I don't know sure which algorithms CVS/RCS apply for  
> textual
> files, neither for storage nor for network transfer. Maybe that  
> should be
> stated there, too, to then explain what Subversion does better and  
> how.
>
> cheers
>
> Uli
>
>
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