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Deltas vs. Change sets
Last updated at 8:18 am UTC on 2 November 2007
What do deltas have that change sets don't?
  1. Deltas have lots of tests.
  2. Deltas are Rich. Change sets contain two kinds of entities: method definitions, and do-it's (the .changes file additionally provides some logging support). Deltas, on the other hand, model many types of changes:
  3. There can be multiple Deltas "logging" simultaneously instead of just one. We don't (redundantly) keep track of which ones they are outside of the standard notifier mechanism.
  4. A Delta uses a flat sequence (OrderedCollection) of so called Changes (formerly named "Actions", but "Changes" is a better name) to represent each actual fine granular code change. Each such change corresponds more or less with one notification from SystemChangeNotifier. In contrast ChangeSet uses a Dictionary of ClassChangeRecord instances grouping changes per class.
  5. Deltas allow cherry-picking at all stages of its life. While a delta is logging, it could be configured to log only changes to a particular package, or changes to unit tests, or other conditions. Deltas can be pieced together from other deltas, from the image, or from the user directly modifying them. A user can selectively apply or revert individual changes in a delta, or chunks of changes. (This is just barely implemented)
  6. Each Change records all its state including the state before the change, in an easily serializable way (it does not hold onto classes for example). Thus for example, a DSChangeClassCommentAction holds both the old and the new comment and the class name it refers to.
  7. Given the above each Change can create its corresponding anti Change. Applying the change and then its anti change should leave you with an image in its original state.
  8. Deltas know nothing about isolation features for Projects like ChangeSets do.
  9. Changes are more clearly defined, for example there are separate change classes for changing inst vars, changing class vars, changing the superclass etc etc, and not just a single "class def changed".
  10. Handles class renames gracefully - a class rename is an explicit change object.
  11. Condensing (removing redundant changes, addition followed by removal and so on) of Changes is an explicit operation and not done "on the fly" as ChangeSet does. This means that a Delta is a "true log" until you normalize it.
  12. A Delta has a UUID.
  13. A Delta has an attributes Dictionary to be able to handle more arbitrary info fields without requiring new code.
  14. ...and probably more we have missed.