5 ms·

"VAX had versioned filesystems" I think that's a stretch. It had file-name;rev where each time you wrote the file it bumped $rev. As an SCM guy, that's not v

"VAX had versioned filesystems" I think that's a stretch. It had file-name;rev where each time you wrote the file it bumped $rev. As an SCM guy, that's not versioning, that's automatic backups. And you have to run purge all the time to free up disk space. I don't mean to be pedantic but this is the second time I've seen this claim in the last few days.

tyingq 9y ago
That's what they are called though..."versioning filesystems". I didn't compare it to SCM. It is probably more comparable to snapshots. The number of revisions held is configurable.
- luckydude 9y ago
  Yeah, wasn't trying to nitpick, just pointing out that as a file system guy (I did a pile of work on UFS at Sun) and an SCM guy, I don't think that we want people to think of what VMS had as a versioning file system. To me, a versioning file system has a dag, the OS creates a node everytime you close it with modifications; if two people close at the same time then just like BK or Git you fork the graph, which means the next time someone opens it it has to be merged. As I said elsewhere, it would be super cool to have such a thing for /etc, if you wack a config, debian wacks it, you upgrade, you then get all the features that an SCM system give you for merging. I dunno what Git gives you but BitKeeper does a kickass job of automerging and has a complicated but pleasant graphical file merge.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    > As I said elsewhere, it would be super cool to have such a thing for /etc, if you wack a config, debian wacks it, you upgrade, you then get all the features that an SCM system give you for merging. I dunno what Git gives you but BitKeeper does a kickass job of automerging and has a complicated but pleasant graphical file merge. Etckeeper [1] does this. There's also etcd, but that seems to be more akin to Puppet and Chef. Disclaimer: I've never used any of the mentioned software. [1] https://etckeeper.branchable.com/ https://etckeeper.branchable.com/

tyingq 9y ago

That's what they are called though..."versioning filesystems". I didn't compare it to SCM. It is probably more comparable to snapshots. The number of revisions held is configurable.

luckydude 9y ago
Yeah, wasn't trying to nitpick, just pointing out that as a file system guy (I did a pile of work on UFS at Sun) and an SCM guy, I don't think that we want people to think of what VMS had as a versioning file system. To me, a versioning file system has a dag, the OS creates a node everytime you close it with modifications; if two people close at the same time then just like BK or Git you fork the graph, which means the next time someone opens it it has to be merged. As I said elsewhere, it would be super cool to have such a thing for /etc, if you wack a config, debian wacks it, you upgrade, you then get all the features that an SCM system give you for merging. I dunno what Git gives you but BitKeeper does a kickass job of automerging and has a complicated but pleasant graphical file merge.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  > As I said elsewhere, it would be super cool to have such a thing for /etc, if you wack a config, debian wacks it, you upgrade, you then get all the features that an SCM system give you for merging. I dunno what Git gives you but BitKeeper does a kickass job of automerging and has a complicated but pleasant graphical file merge. Etckeeper [1] does this. There's also etcd, but that seems to be more akin to Puppet and Chef. Disclaimer: I've never used any of the mentioned software. [1] https://etckeeper.branchable.com/ https://etckeeper.branchable.com/