# 6.170, CVS, and SVN

DevFeed: [6.170, CVS, and SVN](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/6-170-cvs-and-svn-21881.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/2007/02/3/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2007-02-11T01:33:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [Software Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software-engineering.md>), [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>)

Tags: [opinion](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/opinion.md>), [software-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-engineering.md>), [version-control](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/version-control.md>)

## AI overview

The author describes using Tailor to mirror a required CVS repository into SVN for a software engineering course. Because Tailor supports one-way mirroring rather than synchronization and merging, the author uses SVN as the master repository and propagates changes back to CVS through a post-commit hook while manually handling newly distributed problem sets.

## Source excerpt

I'm taking 6.170 Lab in Software Engineering this semester. The course sucks in various ways, but one of the most egregious, in my opinion, is that they force you to use CVS for your version control. Problem sets are distributed by the TAs importing them into your repository, and are then checked out later to be graded. Well, CVS sucks, and there's no way I'm going to use it when there are sane, modern alternatives like SVN and SVK