

Bram Cohen: The diff problem has been solved - aston
http://bramcohen.livejournal.com/37690.html

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ComputerGuru
I can vouch that BZR has one of the best plain-text diff tools - whether or
not it's number 1 without numbers to back the claim is a different matter
though.

However, what I really want to see is BZR and GIT catching up to SVN when it
comes to binary diffs - SVN remains the most efficient at finding and
commiting changes to binary data between revisions. It may not seem so
important, but if you're ever in a backwards country on business and need to
upload to a repository via dial-up..... and of course, the smaller the binary
diffs the more space saved on the server and bandwidth charges.

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ralph
What kind of binary files do you put under SCM?

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ComputerGuru
Mostly binary dependencies. Some are executable files (for instance, GRUB
Stages 1 & 2), some are DLLs, and some are redistributables.

Reason they're under SCM is because we maintain some of them; with varying
degrees of changes. Some have their own repositories, naturally, but others
involve minor changes and/or just simply take too long to build. And for some
of the redistributables: we don't have the source code for them in the first
place.

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tlrobinson
What exactly does it mean for this problem to be "solved"?

 _edit: Bram says "It's been solved in the handwavy 'we got it to stop giving
crap output so often' sense."_

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paulgb
Just noticed the date on this, I wonder if something a little more formal than
a livejournal post has been written about it? If so I can't seem to find it,
but maybe someone else has had better luck?

