[development] Real revision control system for nodes (was Re: Requiring node revisions)

[Derek Wright]

On Jun 7, 2007, at 7:42 AM, Dries Buytaert wrote:

> Still, the purist in me knows that such revisions will be 100%  
> useless and redundant even before they are created. Adding commas  
> might become a big deal. ;-)

This same thought led me to write http://drupal.org/node/50682 way  
back then (my, how quickly d.o generated another 100,000 nodes) about  
using a real revision control system for node revisions. ;)  At the  
time, I was concerned with the inefficiency of storing entire copies  
of the nodes instead of just storing diffs like any sane revision  
system would (it was even worse in 4.6.x, since there was no separate  
table, just a giant serialized array of revisions directly in  
{node}).  But, if we're going to go through the trouble to implement  
a powerful revision system that stores and operates on diffs, why  
reinvent the wheel?  Wouldn't it be slick to have a php API for SVN  
that knew how to store things in any DB you wanted, not just Berkeley  
DB and flat files? (I don't know the state of the art with SVN's  
storage backends these days, though the front page of http:// 
subversion.tigris.org still only lists those 2 options).  Then, you  
could just have all of SVN's power and functionality directly within  
the node revision system.  Branching your handbook?  Merging  
changes?  Editing content off line?  No problem.  Talk about the uber  
publishing site solution... ;)

-Derek