6 ms·

Why is this still maintained? It even stores its own source under git: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/rcs.git/?h=p http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/rcs.git/?

• Erwin 13y ago
  If you want to version control a single file locally with no fuss (exactly one file,v file for storing changesets), I could still see it being handy. It seems it has a maintainer that is very inclusive and accepts all portability fixes. Which is nice enough; many newer open source products are more like fireflies.
  • adfadf 13y ago
    RCS is still used at my work. Some of its features (or omission of features) work well with our shared file system, and we often need to keep only one or two files in a directory under version control.
  • pjungwir 13y ago
    I worked at an agency around 2000-2005 that used RCS to keep files like httpd.conf under source control. Not a great solution, but there were no free "configuration management" tools then, and it was a pretty unrestricted place, with developers and sysadmins sharing access to production systems. It's not what I'd do today, but it was better than nothing and gave them some safety without costing much in process.
    • _ak 13y ago
      One of my previous employers still uses CVS to version and deploy configuration. One reason why git is not an option is the simple fact that you can't check out subdirectories in git.
      • jessaustin 13y ago
        If one were using git, why would one need to check out a directory? I have no objection to people using the tools they prefer, but they should be honest with themselves. The barrier to using git while working in a particular directory lies in changing one's VCS habits, not in a deficiency in git.
• trothamel 13y ago
  People may have information stored under RCS that they still want to access. It doesn't look like there's a lot of work being done to add new features, but having the ability to run RCS on new machines seems like it's a good hedge against data loss.
• gnoway 13y ago
  We're not using RCS, but we use GNU CSSC for an old SCCS codebase. Many people here are keyed into 'new hotness' startup projects. But there are a lot of us out here maintaining 20+ year old codebases for products in maintenance/support mode only. Migrating them to modern version control is a tough sell. CSSC in particular lets me at least host the code on something modern.
• tonyplee 13y ago
  It is a dogfood eating cat. :-)
• pcx66 13y ago
  Adding to what others said, someone I know is planning to use this as a starting point for understanding version control systems. The reason stated was it's simplicity.
  • bch 13y ago
    For distributed SCM, I've got enjoyment out of darcs documentation over the years (ie: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Understanding_Darcs/Patch_theory http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Understanding_Darcs/Patch_theor...), and fossil (http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/permutedindex.wiki#pindex http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/permutedind..., specifically http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/tech_overview.wiki http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/tech_overvi..., http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/concepts.wiki http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/concepts.wi..., http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fileformat.wiki http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/tip/www/fileformat...., etc)
• bch 13y ago
  I ran into an RCS project of my own, just 2 days ago. There are code repositories out there older than git that are still important.
• ghshephard 13y ago
  git / RCS serve very different purposes. RCS is a pretty excellent tool when you have a single file (like httpd.conf, hosts, a zone file) that you want to manage on a server. 80%+ sysadmins know how to ci/co and use rcs in that context. Likely less than 10% of sysadmins would grok the use of git in that context. Also - does git even have the concept of "check out with lock, check in free lock, etc?"
  • lmm 13y ago
    >80%+ sysadmins know how to ci/co and use rcs in that context. Likely less than 10% of sysadmins would grok the use of git in that context. Citation needed, because my experience is the exact opposite.
    • peterwwillis 13y ago
      Git was released in 2005. I will bet you a dollar that about 80% of the sysadmins in the world have been working with some kind of revision control since before 2005. It follows that they would have been familiar with something other than the Git model. Combine this with the laughable idea that not every sysadmin knows git, and the parent statement makes sense. Also, your experience is probably not exactly the same as 80% of sysadmins. But I don't have a citation for that.
      • lmm 13y ago
        "some kind of revision control" =/= rcs, and eight years is quite a while. I'd happily bet that more sysadmins know git than rcs if you find a measurement.
        • ghshephard 13y ago
          While many sysadmins have heard of git, I've never run into one who has ever used it for anything more than just experimenting to learn the tool. For server based control, it's mostly CVS, and, more recently (last 10 years or so) subversion. For local file control it's all rcs .
• Diederich 13y ago
  I believe Perforce still uses RCS under the covers.
  • e40 13y ago
    RCS format not RCS and only when text files are used.
    • Diederich 13y ago
      Yup, thanks for the clarification. As an aside, I discovered the RCS bit after our perforce server had some trouble and started throwing back some error messages with 'RCS' and ',v' in them. :) I'm not much of a Perforce expert, so I had not noted that the docs mention RCS.
• peterwwillis 13y ago
  > So much for dogfooding... It's not maintained by start-up people or MBAs so they don't have to handicap themselves in a world of trite buzzwords. Also, it's still maintained because people still use it. Figured that would be obvious.