3 ms·

People take version control for granted (thanks to git) and then claim it has " design flaws and misfits". It can be tailored to be more user friendly sure. Bu

by robot 10y ago

People take version control for granted (thanks to git) and then claim it has " design flaws and misfits". It can be tailored to be more user friendly sure. But the original philosophy of git was to build distributed version control system that is efficient, straightforward, and dependable. All of those goals are achieved with its design and improving on this foundation is certainly possible. These were all hard problems to solve at the time, given the state of the art was CVS, subversion and perforce.

aab0 10y ago
> All of those goals are achieved with its design and improving on this foundation is certainly possible. These were all hard problems to solve at the time, given the state of the art was CVS, subversion and perforce. The state of the art was not CVS, Subversion, and Perforce when git had its first release in 2005. The state of the art was BitKeeper (which you might remember had a certain connection to Linus and git), Arch, Monotone, and Darcs, and Mercurial itself was first released almost simultaneously with git. And one can debate the extent to which git was an improvement on any of those on key features like cryptographic signing or UI/UX.
NumberSix 10y ago
"People take version control for granted (thanks to git)..." Nonsense. Version control software has existed and been in widespread use since at least the 1980's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System Walter Tichy released RCS in 1982. CVS is derived from RCS, Subversion from CVS.
- kazinator 10y ago
  CVS was released to Usenet as shell script sources only in 1986; not that far after RCS. Subversion is not derived from CVS; it was a project inspired by problems in CVS, to replace it.
  - NumberSix 10y ago
    From http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.history http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.intro.whatis.html#svn... Subversion's History In early 2000, CollabNet, Inc. (http://www.collab.net http://www.collab.net) began seeking developers to write a replacement for CVS. CollabNet offered[3] a collaboration software suite called CollabNet Enterprise Edition (CEE), of which one component was version control. Although CEE used CVS as its initial version control system, CVS's limitations were obvious from the beginning, and CollabNet knew it would eventually have to find something better. Unfortunately, CVS had become the de facto standard in the open source world largely because there wasn't anything better, at least not under a free license. So CollabNet determined to write a new version control system from scratch, retaining the basic ideas of CVS, but without the bugs and misfeatures. Note "retaining the basic ideas of CVS, but without the bugs and misfeatures." derive base a concept on a logical extension or modification of (another concept).
    - kazinator 10y ago
      Subversion doesn't have a shred of CVS code in it and uses completely different storage algorithm and versioning paradigm, radically different than CVS's "tree of RCS files permanently shaped like the working copy and individually versioned". The basic ideas of CVS in SVN are the central repo mode with unreserved checkouts. In SVN, new versions create new entire tree nodes which hare numbered. Branches look like subdirectories and there is renaming support. It's just an entirely different animal. The SVN project blogged about CVS because that was their target "market" that they wanted to overtake. They trumpeted that they are making something better than CVS to which CVS users could convert. It's not derived from CVS any more than Adobe Photoshop is derived from MS Paint.
  - NumberSix 10y ago
    SCCS (Source Code Control System) was developed in 1972 and predated RCS as the dominant version control system for Unix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System Version control is not a new concept and was in widespread use in the 1980's. :-)

by robot 10y ago

aab0 10y ago

> All of those goals are achieved with its design and improving on this foundation is certainly possible. These were all hard problems to solve at the time, given the state of the art was CVS, subversion and perforce. The state of the art was not CVS, Subversion, and Perforce when git had its first release in 2005. The state of the art was BitKeeper (which you might remember had a certain connection to Linus and git), Arch, Monotone, and Darcs, and Mercurial itself was first released almost simultaneously with git. And one can debate the extent to which git was an improvement on any of those on key features like cryptographic signing or UI/UX.

NumberSix 10y ago

"People take version control for granted (thanks to git)..." Nonsense. Version control software has existed and been in widespread use since at least the 1980's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_Control_System Walter Tichy released RCS in 1982. CVS is derived from RCS, Subversion from CVS.

kazinator 10y ago
CVS was released to Usenet as shell script sources only in 1986; not that far after RCS. Subversion is not derived from CVS; it was a project inspired by problems in CVS, to replace it.
- NumberSix 10y ago
  From http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.history http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.intro.whatis.html#svn... Subversion's History In early 2000, CollabNet, Inc. (http://www.collab.net http://www.collab.net) began seeking developers to write a replacement for CVS. CollabNet offered[3] a collaboration software suite called CollabNet Enterprise Edition (CEE), of which one component was version control. Although CEE used CVS as its initial version control system, CVS's limitations were obvious from the beginning, and CollabNet knew it would eventually have to find something better. Unfortunately, CVS had become the de facto standard in the open source world largely because there wasn't anything better, at least not under a free license. So CollabNet determined to write a new version control system from scratch, retaining the basic ideas of CVS, but without the bugs and misfeatures. Note "retaining the basic ideas of CVS, but without the bugs and misfeatures." derive base a concept on a logical extension or modification of (another concept).
  - kazinator 10y ago
    Subversion doesn't have a shred of CVS code in it and uses completely different storage algorithm and versioning paradigm, radically different than CVS's "tree of RCS files permanently shaped like the working copy and individually versioned". The basic ideas of CVS in SVN are the central repo mode with unreserved checkouts. In SVN, new versions create new entire tree nodes which hare numbered. Branches look like subdirectories and there is renaming support. It's just an entirely different animal. The SVN project blogged about CVS because that was their target "market" that they wanted to overtake. They trumpeted that they are making something better than CVS to which CVS users could convert. It's not derived from CVS any more than Adobe Photoshop is derived from MS Paint.
- NumberSix 10y ago
  SCCS (Source Code Control System) was developed in 1972 and predated RCS as the dominant version control system for Unix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System Version control is not a new concept and was in widespread use in the 1980's. :-)