RCS and SCCS

[Joel Clark]

In article <10406 at ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> ekrell at hector (Eduardo Krell) writes:
>In article <290 at intelisc.UUCP> joel at intelisc.UUCP (Joel Clark) writes:
>
>>Can anyone explain to me how a program could store `the most recent version`
>>such that each line in the file does not need to be examined to determine
>>if it is in the most recent version?
>
>You store the most recent version at the beginning of the file in clear
>text followed by the reverse delta to get the previous version
>(followed by the reverse delta to get the version before that, etc.).
>
>Time to get the latest version is thus proportional only to the size of
>that version. Time to get version N is proportional to the size of
>the last version plus the size of all deltas necessary to get from there
>down to version N.
>    
>    Eduardo Krell                   AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
>
>    UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell		ARPA: ekrell at ulysses.att.com

How well does this work if (as we are) you are working from 3 branches at once.
We keep major branches for Development engineers, Sustaining engineers and
Evaluation all in the same source file.  This allows us to proceed with project
that may not go into production for 12-18 months based on the same sources
that we ship, folding in the changes to the production code as they become
solid.