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Properly tracking changes would allow less disk space to be used. xdelta is not supposed to be used on compressed data [1], but my VCS will handle that transpa

Properly tracking changes would allow less disk space to be used. xdelta is not supposed to be used on compressed data [1], but my VCS will handle that transparently using less space. You are right to be nervous about auto merges, and that will be the biggest work when implementing support for a file type. But I think it is possible in many cases. For example, Blender files store everything in one file. You can reference things between files, and people do that, but often, you will still want to store the material for a mesh with the mesh. If someone changes the mesh, and someone else changes a material, those changes should automerge. [1]: https://github.com/jmacd/xdelta/issues/193#issuecomment-100025553 https://github.com/jmacd/xdelta/issues/193#issuecomment-1000...

johannes1234321 2y ago
One of the (many) major improvements of git over CVS was that CVS stored diffs., while git (not on lowest, but practicalblaxer) stores the full files. Depending on diffs made it hard to jump between versions (need to calculate the intermediate steps for any operation) while tracking full files made it possible that git could track changes even over files, thus in some cases it can even merge when code is moved between files. And for the merge: Even the "simple" merge you describe will likely lead to issues when a designer worked on improving surface to make a scene look "right" while somebody else changes the scene and the merge then goes somewhat unseen. And for that kind of stuff you don't have any unit tests as at least a safety net, as you have with code ("it compiles and tests pass - the merge didn't break anything fundamental")
- gavinhoward 2y ago
  About diffs, that is true, but my VCS does not use diffs. And I am aware of the combination problem, and there will be the option to lock things. But when it comes to visual things, someone does have to stare at it. If you watch https://youtube.com/watch?v=iZre2MUyvoQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=iZre2MUyvoQ , the thing you should notice is that John Lasseter is constantly checking the integration of separate parts. A director might tell a modeler and a designer to work on the same scene at the same time, as you said. In that case, I kinda expect the director to check the integration. Binary files are harder because there is no integration test, yes. But integration tests don't catch everything in code either, and people still want automatic merges.

johannes1234321 2y ago

One of the (many) major improvements of git over CVS was that CVS stored diffs., while git (not on lowest, but practicalblaxer) stores the full files. Depending on diffs made it hard to jump between versions (need to calculate the intermediate steps for any operation) while tracking full files made it possible that git could track changes even over files, thus in some cases it can even merge when code is moved between files. And for the merge: Even the "simple" merge you describe will likely lead to issues when a designer worked on improving surface to make a scene look "right" while somebody else changes the scene and the merge then goes somewhat unseen. And for that kind of stuff you don't have any unit tests as at least a safety net, as you have with code ("it compiles and tests pass - the merge didn't break anything fundamental")

gavinhoward 2y ago
About diffs, that is true, but my VCS does not use diffs. And I am aware of the combination problem, and there will be the option to lock things. But when it comes to visual things, someone does have to stare at it. If you watch https://youtube.com/watch?v=iZre2MUyvoQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=iZre2MUyvoQ , the thing you should notice is that John Lasseter is constantly checking the integration of separate parts. A director might tell a modeler and a designer to work on the same scene at the same time, as you said. In that case, I kinda expect the director to check the integration. Binary files are harder because there is no integration test, yes. But integration tests don't catch everything in code either, and people still want automatic merges.