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

[Brandon S. Allbery]

As quoted from <1988Aug16.010040.16706 at gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> by woods at 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. ]
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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.

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| 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.)

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| 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.
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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
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