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From: orc@pell.chi.il.us (Orc)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 7 Dec 1995 23:30:17 -0800
Organization: We're here, we're queer, we're going to drink some beer
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <4a8pi9$pk1@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <MICHAELV.95Dec2230815@mindbender.headcandy.com> <49sql5$99f@pell.pell.chi.il.us> <49tgp7$sn5@blackice.winternet.com>
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:30614 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10645 comp.unix.advocacy:12289 comp.unix.misc:20146
In article <49tgp7$sn5@blackice.winternet.com>,
Jeff Dege <jdege@winternet.com> wrote:
>On 3 Dec 1995 10:35:17 -0800, Orc (orc@pell.chi.il.us) wrote:
>:
>: I don't know how Linus does internal version control, but there
>: are plenty of companies that don't use version control (or have got
>: Company Standards(tm) like DEC's CMS, which is worthless) that are
>: not known for 'buggier and harder to maintain' software. SCCS is
>: an unqualified Good Thing(tm), but, regretfully, it's not necessary
>: to use it to produce good reliable code.
>
> Use of automated version control systems is by no means a requirement
>in building reliable software, but version control definitely is. If
>you can't control changes to your system, you can't keep bugs fixed.
Heh. It's been addressed in other posts, but it's not necessarily
true. I like SCCS(*), and use it religiously, but for little bits of
code, (<1500 loc) it's amazingly easy to forget about doing version
control until you've got a completed product out the door and safely
debugged. And I've seen people do this with much larger stuff -- of
course, their lives ARE the code, and I think I'd rather have a real
life than attain programmer nirvana these days.
One of the appalling things about not doing version control on
large projects was drummed into my head about 12 years ago, when
I'd heavily modified the UCSD Pascal (I.5) Pascal compiler into an
odd little hybrid of C++ and Modula-2. A friend suggested that I
port the thing to a different machine, which I thought was a
wonderful idea until I realised that I'd not been keeping backups
and had developed a self-hosting compiler that could not be compiled
with a bog-standard UCSD compiler any more. Ooops. Needless to
say, I immediately, or as quickly as I could get a machine with
enough room to do SCCS(*), became a revision control fetishist.
(* SCCS in the strictly no-sectarian sense of the word, that is
-- I'd not dream of stealing AT^H^HNov^H^H^HSCO code when nicer
alternatives exist.)
____
david parsons \bi/ orc@pell.chi.il.us
\/