[darcs-users] Re: several variants and developers at the same time

[Thomas Hafner]

Jamie Webb <j at jmawebb.cjb.net> wrote/schrieb <20061119185735.GA21522 at digitalice.co.uk>:

> You would probably be ok if settings.h did not appear in the trunk
> repository at all, but I suspect you will be better off keeping a
> single codebase and e.g. using the build system to configure it.

Yes, that's a very good solution for C, because it can easily achived
with ``make'' and preprocessor directives (#ifdef .. #endif).

Let's assume a more difficult situation:

Instead of C, it's another language XYZ, which has no integrated
preprocessor. Instead of settings.h, there's file settings.XYZ (also
with variants). If a foreign preprocessor was used, then the XYZ-IDE
could no longer deal with the source, because the IDE would be
confused by the foreign preprocessor statements. Editing the foreign
preprocessor output with the IDE is also a bad idea, because the
modification will be overridden next time when the preprocessor is
launched. The language XYZ source code will be shipped to the
customers, but by contract customer A is not allowed to see file
content special to customer B and vice versa. In addition it is
important to the developers to look at several variants at the same
time, so they can investigate the differences, e.g. by diff.

What solution do you suggest in that situation?

Regards
  Thomas