Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 19:29:23 +0200
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
Sender: halo1 AT zahav DOT net DOT il
To: Tim Van Holder <tim DOT vanholder AT falconsoft DOT be>
Message-Id: <9003-Fri08Dec2000192923+0200-eliz@is.elta.co.il>
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CC: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-reply-to: <3A30FB4A.68186893@falconsoft.be> (message from Tim Van Holder on
	Fri, 08 Dec 2000 15:17:12 GMT)
Subject: Re: CVS in a dos box...
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> From: Tim Van Holder <tim DOT vanholder AT falconsoft DOT be>
> Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
> Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2000 15:17:12 GMT
>
> I would strongly suggest using a /dev-style CVSROOT though; as I said, I
> have CVS 1.11 ready, and it will only support /dev/F/oo, not F:/oo (or
> :local:f:/oo, for that matter).

Why is support for drive letters such a big deal?  All DJGPP ports
support them, and all of them also support backslashes as well as
forward slashes.  That has always been a tradition in DJGPP ports to
support native DOS/Windows file names.

What makes CVS so different?

I think the lack of support for native file names will mightily
confuse DJGPP users, exactly like the user who started this thread was
confused.  It will also create subtle bugs when CVS is invoked from
some other program, such as Emacs (which has integrated support for
CVS).  These programs typically use drive letters in file names and
assume that any program they invoke supports them as well.

If you want to see how bad things can be with non-support of drive
letters, look at the complaints posted to Emacs- and XEmacs-related
news groups by people who use old Cygwin ports which wanted all file
names to be in the //c/foo/bar format.  This is a source of a
never-ending flood of FAQs.

If there are specific problems which make it hard to support drive
letters in CVS, please explain what they are, and let's look for
solutions.  I solved some of these problems several times in several
different packages, and so did others who read this list.  I'm sure we
can solve whatever problems CVS has up its sleeve.  Let's not give up
too easily.

<rant>
I find it disturbing, to say the least, that some ports begin to
abandon support for parts of native DOS/Windows features.  There are
already quite a few ports that cannot be built without LFN support.
Now we will have a CVS port that doesn't support drive letters.
What next?  Will we wake up one day to find out that all DJGPP ports
only build and run on GNU/Linux?  I hope not ;-)
</rant>