Subversion: deleting old feature branches vs. keeping them

Question

I have a subversion repository with the standard layout, i.e. trunk/ and branches/ (and tags/). When working on a bigger change, a feature branch is used, regularly synced with trunk, and later reintegrated back into trunk (using 1.5 now). Pretty standard stuff.

What I am wondering is whether such a feature branch, once finished and merged should be kept around, or deleted. The subversion book occasionally seems to suggest that it is common to delete them, but I've also seen a bunch of Open Source projects which do keep the branches.

I am also somewhat concerned about how deleting a branch will make it harder to keep track of which branches existed, especially when potentially duplicate names enter the scenario (say we search-refactor twice), their commit histories disappearing somewhere in the depth of the repository etc.

On the other hand, branches are used quite a lot, especially with 1.5 now, and I do like the thought of not having to poke through a large list of inactive branches to find the ones I am currently working on.

What are the pros and cons that I am missing? What are people doing?

Answer 1

If you are really worried about deleting them, lest they be forgotten, then simply create a folder under branches called 'inactive' and svn move your older, inactive branches into that folder. This might be the best of both worlds for you.