[p4] Workspace option: exclusive open

[Robert Cowham]

> > Using GUI tools, changing the workspace in the drop-down or 
> by opening
> another window is an easy operation.
> 
> Easy, but not fast. There is a noticeable delay for me, and 
> I'm in the same building as the server. For our developers connecting from
Europe and India, 
> it's really annoying. 

I have seen both practices used successfully - single large workspaces, and
also one workspace per target branch.

The drawback with single large workspaces is that people who don't know what
they are doing don't to a p4 sync #0 to get rid of local files, and this can
end up inflating the size of the db.have table. It is often a good idea to
do a sweep around from time to time and tidy up such things. I have seen
this quite often when auditing perforce usage. I think you are perhaps
rather more in control than the average Perforce user!

> To do this five times (which would be required to propogate a 
> change to all the active branches, on average) is unacceptable. None of
our developers 
> have that kind of patience. (Neither do their managers.)

With that amount of propagation how possible is automation?

> > You don't need to "see" the source branch in order to integrate from
> it (i.e. use it as the source of an integration).

> Technically, no, but my experience is that developers who 
> don't see both source and destination either make mistakes or forget to
integrate at all.

Another argument for helpful automation?

> What was your experience before you switched to using 
> multiple workspaces? In my case, we've had zero problems related to single
workspaces 
> and continuing problems with multiples. (Some of our developers do create
multiple workspaces.
> That's where I see most of our problems.) I have to go with my own 
> experience on this one, your mileage may vary.

Your real world experience is very useful for all.

Robert