Question

My co-workers and I are having an argument over the value and usage of Tags in release/SCM systems. We’re looking to the StackOverflow community to put in their thoughts to help us resolve the issue.

One side claims that Tags are a valuable addition to release management. An example of their use: we do a Maven release, which makes a new Tag (call it 1.0) which is code snapshot used for this release. This Tag should be a READONLY branch. When a bug needs to be fixed we can make a copy of the Tag into a new Branch (call it 1.1). Bug fixes go there. These fixes may be merged back into Trunk so that the main dev branch gets the bug fixes. Finally, 1.1 is released and a Tag 1.1 is automatically created. This cycle continues. The main benefit here of the Tag is that if you ever need to re-release version 1.0 for any reason, you can just release the Tag 1.0 with the confidence that it’s never been altered by anyone. Also, saying ‘Release Tag 1.0’ is cleaner than saying ‘Release revision 1 of branch 1.0 which is the original 1.0 without the fixes’.

The other side claims that Tags aren’t providing any valuable benefit, especially in a system like Subversion with global revisions, which act like a Tag in CVS. Plus, Subversion only gives a warning when committing to a Tag; it doesn’t actually stop it. Their method is developing in Trunk and upon release you’d make a Branch called 1.0. You’d continue bug fixes in Trunk and if you needed to re-release those bug fixes to production, you’d merge them into 1.0 Branch and re-release 1.0. At some point, perhaps after major fixes or features in Trunk, you’d release and make Branch 1.1. Cycle continues. If you ever need to release the original 1.0 version, you’d have to check out Branch 1.0 revision 1.

Clearly both methods work. I’d like to hear the community’s thoughts on which method is preferred and why.

Edit: I’m a little worried that the ‘best’ way depends on the underlying SCM system. Either settle on Subversion for answers or if possible keep it SCM agnostic.

Answer 1

From an SCM agnostic point of view, a tag is very different from a revision.

Both may be implemented in the same way, both represents a ‘time line’, but their goal is different:

• a tag represent an immutable state where all files are referenced by a unique id. It is a name representing many things but mainly a stable state, …)
• a revision represent a commit transaction (not all SCM have those, especially the old ones with a ‘file-by-file approach’). All commits do not represent a ‘stable’ state (as in ‘compile’ or ‘execute’ successfully). They are just a new element of the global history.

The problem with SVN is that revision, tag and branches are all implemented the same.
But I would still prefer the option where a tag is used as a ‘read-only’ branch.