In some development situations, it makes sense to configure your workspace to contain a specified subset of the depot’s elements, rather than all the elements. The benefits can be quite significant:
Prior to Version 3.5, AccuRev supported a feature similar to include/exclude mode, called sparse workspaces. A sparse workspace started out empty; you added certain elements to the workspace using the
Populate command. Those elements were maintained in the regular manner, using
Keep,
Promote, and
Update. Other elements in the depot were ignored.
This scheme was satisfactory for many purposes, but there were some drawbacks. For example, an
Update would not bring newly created elements into your workspace, just new versions of the elements that you had already
Populate’d.