Re: use make and version control system for every project?

From: Carl Banks (imbosol_at_aerojockey.invalid)
Date: 10/06/03 

Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 04:16:36 GMT

Ben Finney wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 03:08:57 GMT, Carl Banks wrote:
>> I recommended not bothering early on because I tend to move files
>> around quite a bit early on (a major pain in CVS), and I suspect I'm
>> not the only person to do that.
>
> That's a flaw of CVS, not of revision control. Other revision control
> systems (Arch, Subversion, even RCS) don't suffer from this flaw; use
> any of those to have *no* excuse not to use revision control from the
> project's inception.

Well, I've never used Arch or Subversion, so I can't evaluate them.
I'd expect too much moving files around to be a headache in general
(even if the system used is a lot better than CVS), but maybe those
other systems make it effortless. (shrug).

>> Incidentally, this is probably greatest strength of version control
>> relative to frequent backups (for personal projects, of course). It's
>> also a feature I've found extremely little use for. I mean, it sounds
>> cool to be able to go back and see exactly when you made a certain
>> change, but is that really useful in practice?
>
> It's more than cool.
>
> A change history is vital on a fast-changing project; you can see when a
> particular feature went in, when a bug was fixed, when a structural
> change was made, etc.

Why is that important? How often do you really need to know when a
bug was fixed, for example? (I'm serious. I've never needed to know
these things. Do other people really use these features for personal
projects? And if they do, is it really that often?)

> A change history is vital in multi-developer projects (though that's not
> what the OP asked about) to supplement fallible human memory.

It's not what I was talking about, either. Of course, version control
is needed if there's more than a few people working on something.

> A change history is required by many free software licenses (the GPL
> being one) when you change another's work.

Well, that's certainly a good enough reason to use it, when such a
situation occurs.

> Sound useful enough?

I don't know. Reasons B and C don't apply to most personal projects,
and I'm not convinced of the usefulness of Reason A. 

-- 
CARL BANKS                   http://www.aerojockey.com/software
As the newest Lady Turnpot descended into the kitchen wrapped only in
her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling
like a temperamental souffle, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the
sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, "I don't know what to make of
her." 
          --Laurel Fortuner, Montendre, France 
            1992 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winner

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