JP Vossen on 16 Nov 2017 17:34:56 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] Revision Control for the Rest of Us


On 11/16/2017 04:46 PM, bergman@merctech.com wrote:
Other systems (bzr, hg) may simpler for end users (particularly
developers), but RCS still has a vital role for system adminsitrators.

It's very light-weight (no database of any kind required, versioned
files are text and are fairly human-readable...if you enjoy curling up to
read a nice "diff"), it's not client/server or distributed (no network
required, no daemon required even if running locally) and it's arguably
more secure than any 'modern' versioning system. Did you just commit the
file "secretkey"? No problem...the versioned file is still only readable
by the same account[s] that did the commit.

But all but 1 of those things are mostly true of the 3 main DVCS tools we're talking about! :-)

1. Light-weight = yeah, OK, RCS is smaller than anything else, not sure I care, but OK.

2. No DB = fail, all 3 use some kind of DB inside the ./.vcs/ dir (meaning ./bzr/, ./git/, or ./.hg/ dir). The plain-text hackability is the *only* real advantage that RCS has, I'd argue.

The concept of:
	A: Keep the current version intact at the TOP
	B: Diff the older ones back in time for forever
...that's just awesome.

3. No network or daemon required = right, no net or daemon required for any of them.

4. More secure = no difference, see the perms on the ./.vcs/ dir.

With today's computing resources, I'll argue that it just doesn't matter, and that RCS is more limiting than the others. But...that doesn't really matter either, use what works for you.


Since BSD 4.2, I haven't found a better tool for version control of
individual system files (think stuff in /etc)....but I'm grateful to
folks on this list for pointing out alternatives.

And there's a good point, use what works for you. :-)


[Note that "version
control" is absolutely not the same thing as "configuration management".]

Yup!  Nor is any of this "back ups"!!!

Later,
JP
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