[TUHS] A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[TUHS] A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[Marc Rochkind]

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I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
Software Engineering.

The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
version of it:

https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf

Marc

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[TUHS] Re: A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[Larry McVoy]

Nice.

For what it is worth, your SCCS supports merging just fine.  We used
SCCS to do merges without copying by using your includes.  If SCCS had
had a -m for merge, it would have included the branch but then all the
other deltas going up to the GCA.  Much like the tip means the tip
but all the other deltas going back to 1.1.

SCCS was a big contribution to the state of the art, I am forever
grateful that you did it.  To this day I don't think people know
what you did.  When we were a business, every time some SCM came out,
Rick or I would ask "is there a weave" like you had done, if not,
we didn't care.  That weave format that you did 50 years ago is
awesome.  


On Mon, Jan 06, 2025 at 06:16:25PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
> upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
> Software Engineering.
> 
> The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
> version of it:
> 
> https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf
> 
> Marc

-- 
---
Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing          http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

[TUHS] Re: A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[Marc Rochkind]

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Thanks for the kind words, Larry.

Marc

On Mon, Jan 6, 2025 at 6:49 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> Nice.
>
> For what it is worth, your SCCS supports merging just fine.  We used
> SCCS to do merges without copying by using your includes.  If SCCS had
> had a -m for merge, it would have included the branch but then all the
> other deltas going up to the GCA.  Much like the tip means the tip
> but all the other deltas going back to 1.1.
>
> SCCS was a big contribution to the state of the art, I am forever
> grateful that you did it.  To this day I don't think people know
> what you did.  When we were a business, every time some SCM came out,
> Rick or I would ask "is there a weave" like you had done, if not,
> we didn't care.  That weave format that you did 50 years ago is
> awesome.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 06, 2025 at 06:16:25PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> > I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
> > upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
> > Software Engineering.
> >
> > The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
> > version of it:
> >
> > https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf
> >
> > Marc
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
>


-- 
Subscribe to my Photo-of-the-Week emails at my website mrochkind.com.

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[TUHS] Re: A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[Luther Johnson]

I never knew the technical details of what you had done, but I enjoyed
using SCCS in the mid-80's when I started using UNIX, and it helped me
develop an understanding of source code management disciplines.
Sometimes I had to use RCS when SCCS wasn't available, later I used
everything else, as we all did, but I always liked the way SCCS worked
on those first SunOS and Ultrix systems where I encountered it,
especially when it was well understood by the make utility. Thank you
for this great contribution, and I enjoyed reading your paper just now.

On 01/06/2025 06:49 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Nice.
>
> For what it is worth, your SCCS supports merging just fine.  We used
> SCCS to do merges without copying by using your includes.  If SCCS had
> had a -m for merge, it would have included the branch but then all the
> other deltas going up to the GCA.  Much like the tip means the tip
> but all the other deltas going back to 1.1.
>
> SCCS was a big contribution to the state of the art, I am forever
> grateful that you did it.  To this day I don't think people know
> what you did.  When we were a business, every time some SCM came out,
> Rick or I would ask "is there a weave" like you had done, if not,
> we didn't care.  That weave format that you did 50 years ago is
> awesome.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 06, 2025 at 06:16:25PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote:
>> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
>> upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
>> Software Engineering.
>>
>> The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
>> version of it:
>>
>> https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf
>>
>> Marc

[TUHS] Re: A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[arnold]

Marc Rochkind <mrochkind@gmail.com> wrote:

> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
> upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
> Software Engineering.
>
> The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
> version of it:
>
> https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf
>
> Marc

This is a nice paper. Marc, I think you're a little too hard on your
24-year old self. To have created the weave at the age of 24 indicates
(to me) that you were certainly a well above average programmer /
computer scientist.  Many of the other things you criticize could be
attributed to simply not knowing better (= not having yet had enough
experience).

My two cents, anyway.  Again, a nice paper.

Arnold

[TUHS] Re: A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[Rik Farrow]

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Very nicely written history, as well as explanation of how systems
differed. I appreciated reading this, but especially enjoyed one of the
closing paragraphs on the future:

How am I supposed to know? AI is already doing some coding. Maybe in ten or
twenty years it will do all of it. Will AI need version control? If it
does, will it be the latest version of Git, or maybe something invented by
AI?

Thanks Marc
Rik


On Mon, Jan 6, 2025 at 6:16 PM Marc Rochkind <mrochkind@gmail.com> wrote:

> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
> upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
> Software Engineering.
>
> The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
> version of it:
>
> https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf
>
> Marc
>

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[TUHS] Re: A Retrospective on the Source Code Control System

[Marc Rochkind]

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Glad you liked that paragraph, Rik. I had that section head in my outline
and when I got there I had no idea what to type. Got away with it! ;-)

Marc

On Tue, Jan 7, 2025, 6:40 PM Rik Farrow <rik@rikfarrow.com> wrote:

> Very nicely written history, as well as explanation of how systems
> differed. I appreciated reading this, but especially enjoyed one of the
> closing paragraphs on the future:
>
> How am I supposed to know? AI is already doing some coding. Maybe in ten
> or twenty years it will do all of it. Will AI need version control? If it
> does, will it be the latest version of Git, or maybe something invented by
> AI?
>
> Thanks Marc
> Rik
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 6, 2025 at 6:16 PM Marc Rochkind <mrochkind@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was writing this invited paper for an
>> upcoming 50-year anniversary of the first issue of IEEE Transactions on
>> Software Engineering.
>>
>> The paper has now been accepted for publication and here's a preprint
>> version of it:
>>
>> https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/SCCSretro2.pdf
>>
>> Marc
>>
>

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