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(cvsbook.info)Reminding People To Use Watches

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Reminding People To Use Watches
-------------------------------

You've probably noticed that the watch features are utterly dependent on
the cooperation of all the developers.  If someone just starts editing a
file without first running cvs edit, no one else will know about it
until the changes get committed.  Because cvs edit is an additional
step, not part of the normal development routine, people can easily
forget to do it.

Although CVS can't force someone to use cvs edit, it does have a
mechanism for reminding people to do so - the watch on command:

     floss$ cvs -q co myproj
     U myproj/README.txt
     U myproj/foo.gif
     U myproj/hello.c
     U myproj/a-subdir/whatever.c
     U myproj/a-subdir/subsubdir/fish.c
     U myproj/b-subdir/random.c
     floss$ cd myproj
     floss$ cvs watch on hello.c
     floss$

By running cvs watch on hello.c, jrandom causes future checkouts of
myproj to create hello.c read-only in the working copy.  When qsmith
tries to work on it, he'll discover that it's read-only and be reminded
to run cvs edit first:

     paste$ cvs -q co myproj
     U myproj/README.txt
     U myproj/foo.gif
     U myproj/hello.c
     U myproj/a-subdir/whatever.c
     U myproj/a-subdir/subsubdir/fish.c
     U myproj/b-subdir/random.c
     paste$ cd myproj
     paste$ ls -l
     total 6
     drwxr-xr-x   2 qsmith    users        1024 Jul 19 01:06 CVS/
     -rw-r--r--   1 qsmith    users          38 Jul 12 11:28 README.txt
     drwxr-xr-x   4 qsmith    users        1024 Jul 19 01:06 a-subdir/
     drwxr-xr-x   3 qsmith    users        1024 Jul 19 01:06 b-subdir/
     -rw-r--r--   1 qsmith    users         673 Jun 20 22:47 foo.gif
     -r--r--r--   1 qsmith    users         188 Jul 18 01:20 hello.c
     paste$

When he does so, the file becomes read-write.  He can then edit it, and
when he commits, it becomes read-only again:

     paste$ cvs edit hello.c
     paste$ ls -l hello.c
     -rw-r--r--   1 qsmith    users         188 Jul 18 01:20 hello.c
     paste$ emacs hello.c
       ...
     paste$ cvs commit -m "say hello in Aramaic" hello.c
     Checking in hello.c;
     /usr/local/newrepos/myproj/hello.c,v  <--  hello.c
     new revision: 1.12; previous revision: 1.11
     done
     paste$ ls -l hello.c
     -r--r--r--   1 qsmith    users         210 Jul 19 01:12 hello.c
     paste$

His edit and commit will send notification to all watchers of hello.c.
Note that jrandom isn't necessarily one of them.  By running cvs watch
on hello.c, jrandom did not add herself to the watch list for that file;
she merely specified that it should be checked out read-only.  People
who want to watch a file must remember to add themselves to its watch
list - CVS cannot help them with that.

Turning on watches for a single file may be the exception.  Generally,
it's more common to turn on watches project-wide:

     floss$ cvs -q co myproj
     U myproj/README.txt
     U myproj/foo.gif
     U myproj/hello.c
     U myproj/a-subdir/whatever.c
     U myproj/a-subdir/subsubdir/fish.c
     U myproj/b-subdir/random.c
     floss$ cd myproj
     floss$ cvs watch on
     floss$

This action amounts to announcing a policy decision for the entire
project: "Please use cvs edit to tell watchers what you're working on,
and feel free to watch any file you're interested in or responsible
for."  Every file in the project will be checked out read-only, and thus
people will be reminded that they're expected to use cvs edit before
working on anything.

Curiously, although checkouts of watched files make them read-only,
updates do not.  If qsmith had checked out his working copy before
jrandom ran cvs watch on, his files would have stayed read-write,
remaining so even after updates.  However, any file he commits after
jrandom turns watching on will become read-only.  If jrandom turns off
watches

     floss$ cvs watch off

qsmith's read-only files do not magically become read-write.  On the
other hand, after he commits one, it will not revert to read-only again
(as it would have if watches were still on).

It's worth noting that qsmith could, were he truly devious, make files
in his working copy writeable by using the standard Unix `chmod'
command, bypassing `cvs edit' entirely

     paste$ chmod u+w hello.c

or if he wanted to get everything in one fell swoop:

     paste$ chmod -R u+w .

There is nothing CVS can do about this.  Working copies by their nature
are private sandboxes - the watch features can open them up to public
scrutiny a little bit, but only as far as the developer permits.  Only
when a developer does something that affects the repository (such as
commits) is her privacy unconditionally lost.

The relationship among watch add, watch remove, watch on, and watch off
probably seems a bit confusing.  It may help to summarize the overall
scheme: `add' and `remove' are about adding or removing users from a
file's watch list; they don't have anything to do with whether files
are read-only on checkout or after commits.  `on' and `off' are only
about file permissions.  They don't have anything to do with who is on
a file's watch list; rather, they are tools to help remind developers
of the watch policy by causing working-copy files to become read-only.

All of this may seem a little inconsistent.  In a sense, using watches
works against the grain of CVS.  It deviates from the idealized universe
of multiple developers editing freely in their working copies, hidden
from each other until they choose to commit.  With watches, CVS gives
developers convenient shortcuts for informing each other of what's going
on in their working copies; however, it has no way to enforce
observation policies, nor does it have a definitive concept of what
constitutes an editing session.  Nevertheless, watches can be helpful in
certain circumstances if developers work with them.