From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Steve Simon Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Mime-Version: 1.0 (1.0) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2018 09:01:58 +0000 Message-Id: <2A1056C9-BD0F-476B-9E30-E47CC5098D17@quintile.net> References: In-Reply-To: To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Subject: Re: [9fans] SCMs Topicbox-Message-UUID: d0f5e058-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 fyi i spoke too soon, the labs website went a while ago, but the sources machine= has returned, well i was able to access it last week. last chance (i suspect) for those wanting to download the contrib dirs befor= e they disappear - i got mine =F0=9F=98=80 -Steve =20 On 13 Feb 2018, at 23:13, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: >>> I struggle to understand how version control is not more actively used. >=20 >> It's not particularly necessary when you have global state with >> snapshots provided by a shared WORM fs. >=20 > I always thought that argument was a bit suspect. And with the loss of so= urces.bell-labs.com, it's apparent why. The only revision history was in th= e venti. Now that that is lost, so is that history. I know that there are p= artial mirrors of sources, but none go all the way back to the dawn of the s= ources venti archive. And on the mirrors, we lose the 'blame' functionality= fossil provided by tracking who last updated a file. >=20 > If this had been hosted in an SCM, it would have been so simple to replica= te that full history elsewhere. >=20 > The other bit that snapshots/dumps miss is context. When everyone working= on the code was within shouting distance of the "unix room" that wasn't an i= ssue. But now, that context has been lost. Annotations about the "why" of a= commit are as important as the "what." diffy(1) answers the "what," but no= t the "why." >=20 >> DVCS adds a lot of complexity >> for questionable gain, in that environment. 9front's adoption of >> mercurial is a historical accident rather than a desired outcome. But, >> I understand that most people just want to use the tools they already >> know. It's much easier than learning a new paradigm. >=20 > +100 on DVCS and needless complexity. cvs or sccs provides all the functi= onality I've ever needed in an SCM system. Although I confess I have been s= educed by git's ability to instantly create and switch between branches. It= makes trying out "what if" scenarios completely painless. But it's not enou= gh to convince me to use git except on very rare occasions. >=20 > --lyndon >=20