Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: SCCS vs. RCS (was: RCS for System V) Message-ID: <12261@ncoast.UUCP> Date: 20 Aug 88 00:26:46 GMT References: <16791@adm.ARPA> <1988Aug12.234138.18684@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <3435@phri.UUCP> <1988Aug16.010040.16706@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh Lines: 57 As quoted from <1988Aug16.010040.16706@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> by woods@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Greg Woods): +--------------- | SCCS disadvantages: For me, SCCS is only missing one necessary feature, | and one handy feature: 1. No "automatic" capability to mark a set of | files with a "version" (as opposed to revision) tag. 2. No "state" tag. | | [ 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. If you really want to play with vc, I've used it... send me mail. +--------------- | Of small note, and of complete indifference to me, is SCCS's in-ability | to include the comments, MR numbers, and other interesting information | (that the prs command is able to extract and display from the s-file) | into the g-file (actual source). It is slightly annoying that the get +--------------- I once had a front-end that incorporated an RCS-style log into a source file, via prs. (Why past tense? I use RCS now, if I use anything at all. Generally it's easier to just save "old" and "new" versions of the source directory, since I usually end up tweaking more than just a few files.) +--------------- | level, branch, and sequence id's: ie: only 1.1.1.1. RCS seems to allow | zero (0) as a revision component. I haven't had any success getting | SCCS to use such. +--------------- SCCS translates an "0" to a "1", usually. This can vary based on branching. +--------------- | 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". This | probably isn't as easy as it implies. It certianly isn't that easy with | SCCS. At least not without L. Wall's Patch utility. I've never tried +--------------- 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. +--------------- | In short, (I know, I wasn't) SCCS is the more capable, flexible, and | powerful of the two. Admittedly it is hard to learn, and in some cases, | hard to use, but isn't everything that's more powerful and flexible? :-) +--------------- 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. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, uunet!marque!ncoast!allbery DELPHI: ALLBERY For comp.sources.misc send mail to ncoast!sources-misc