SCCS vs. RCS (was: RCS for System V)

[Greg Woods]

In article <12261 at ncoast.UUCP> allbery at ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
> As quoted from <1988Aug16.010040.16706 at gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> by ME:
[ WOW!  Those article id's really are a mile long :-). ]
> | [ HELP!  Anyone know how to USE vc?  I think it can be used to do this. ]
> 
> A shell script front-end to SCCS can use the %Q% and %T% keywords for this.

Actually I thought of this, but it isn't nearly flexible enough for me.
I want RCS's version names, and I'd use RCS's file states, if available.

> I once had a front-end that incorporated an RCS-style log into a source
> file, via prs.

That sounds like over-kill, since the revision management software
should automatically do this for you.  Actually, I guess it would
eliminate the problem of storing the comments in the database twice :-).

> | According to something I read in the RCS manuals, RCS "simplifies
> | software distribution ... [such that] ... customer changes can be merged
> | into distributed versions locally, or by the development group".
> 
> That quote refers to the ability to read an expanded RCS keyword in a "ci"'d
> file and use the keywords to determine the new delta's revision level.

I still don't see any way of doing it without patch, or a copy of the
version database.

I suppose that is of some use, though a very simple front end could do
the same thing for SCCS, if one had a standard for what strings.  I've
thought of doing this with sccs.c.  In fact, the sccs front-end is
missing the ability to easily, and automatically create SCCS files where
necessary, and this could be an option to that capability.

> When I'm working on source, I don't want the stupid version control system
> to get in my way.  RCS is much nicer than SCCS in this regard, although (as
> I said above) in my case a "low-tech" solution tends to be even nicer.

The only time it gets in my way is initially, when I have to set
everything up in a new directory.  After that, simple habit makes things
quite easy.  When you have to do it for large projects, the same task,
for small projects, and day-by-day maintenance becomes automatic.
-- 
						Greg Woods.

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