6 ms·

I think in a strange way, this tool is actually not a terrible idea. Git is not a configuration management tool, no matter how hard people try to shoe-horn it i

by awalton 12y ago

I think in a strange way, this tool is actually not a terrible idea. Git is not a configuration management tool, no matter how hard people try to shoe-horn it into that role. A simpler Git designed for configuration management is indeed a good idea. Unfortunately, I think the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. For one, not including the committer is an important flaw. If you're only managing your own system's configuration, it makes sense, but surely ESR realizes that UNIX-based OSes are multiuser systems, often administrated by teams of people. Being able to track whodunnit is definitely an important part of the equation. (It'd be incredibly clever if it signed the log with the user's public key too, but that might be asking a lot.) Needing something like SRC to track changes to a simple README or HOWTO? My local bin dir? Ehh not so much. Especially if it's a software project? No, that definitely should live in the VCS with the code, so that those who touch the code will also touch the documentation. It says a lot about src that it doesn't even live in a src repository.

muyuu 12y ago
It's actually a good idea. People often don't bother version-controlling simple stuff because it's a hassle. I routinely use my own rdiff/rsync scripts but this is not something you find in every system and also not something most people would use. A barebones, simple, no-install, easy, not-necessarily-for-experienced-developers VCS is a good thing to have. BTW it's going at 1 release per day. Heh :-)
- npsimons 12y ago
  It's actually a good idea. People often don't bother version-controlling simple stuff because it's a hassle. Here's the thing that's funny to me: git is easy. Everyone (especially mercurial users) goes on about how horrible the UI is, but when I think of git, I think of how similar it is to RCS: easy, quick, and simple. With both, I can diff things and check in changes very quickly. I have a bunch of single files in RCS which I'm moving over to git because it's a no brainer: all the speed and ease of use with a ton of advantages (such as dead simple replication) if I ever need them.
  - encoderer 12y ago
    I love git. I'm a git power user. I've used git as the datastore for a CRM I built. But I respectfully disagree. Git is not "easy." You've been conditioned. You and I know that it's very very hard to lose work or lose commits with Git. I'd say it's nearly impossible to do on accident. But in my first month with Git I rewrote several things because I messed up somehow and couldn't figure it out. I would hose my checkout and resort to doing a new clone. I've since helped run a big transition from SVN to Git and saw the same struggles there. Git is power tools for my code. I could never go back to SVN. But it's not easy.
    - w_t_payne 12y ago
      I agree. Git is powerful, flexible, and (once you grok it) quite simple to understand ... but it baffles new users, and is a complete turn off for people who happen not to be software engineers, even those who are otherwise highly intelligent. I work trying to bridge the gap between a team of mathematicians and algorithms engineers, and a team of embedded software engineers. Most of the embedded software engineers "grok" git (after some practice), and are (fairly) happy using it on a day to day basis. The Mathematicians and Algorithms engineers, on the other hand, aren't really interested in getting to grips with Git (or any version control system for that matter). They'd rather spend their time thinking about mathematics and statistics. (Quite rightly). The decision to use git, whilst justifiable for many valid technical reasons, has definitely thrown up some additional challenges for me and for our organization.
    - npsimons 12y ago
      $ [git init|mkdir RCS] $ $EDITOR somefile $ [git add somefile && git commit|ci -u somefile] Not that hard to use git as a replacement for RCS. A few extra commands (not going to quibble over the fact that RCS requires checkout before edit), but that's about it. The one thing I can see going for RCS is its granularity (in only tracking single files), but that can be as much a burden as managing whole git repos, ie it depends on the use case.
    - jarek 12y ago
      It's easy to mess up a somewhat complex repo in git, but for versioning really simple things like rsync scripts or dot-files, where you have one committer, one branch, and a linear commit log, git's pretty easy. git init, git commit -am, gitk to view history or diff, done.
skywhopper 12y ago
Nothing stopping shops from writing a simple wrapper to add commiter ID and signature in a machine-readable standard way to the commit messages. Sure that could be easily gotten around. So can git's.
fetbaffe 12y ago
It is a great idea. Git is just too much of an hassle when you only have one file of TODOs, a tiny hack or what not. Why bother with checksums when an incremental integer helps me memorize what revision I'm on? However as others has pointed out, maybe the dependency on rcs was not the best choice.
- icebraining 12y ago
  There's life beyond git, though. Bazaar gives you incremental¹ integers and a much nicer UI. ¹ barring merges, but those shouldn't happen in these use cases
  - netghost 12y ago
    Mercurial as well for what it's worth.

by awalton 12y ago

muyuu 12y ago

It's actually a good idea. People often don't bother version-controlling simple stuff because it's a hassle. I routinely use my own rdiff/rsync scripts but this is not something you find in every system and also not something most people would use. A barebones, simple, no-install, easy, not-necessarily-for-experienced-developers VCS is a good thing to have. BTW it's going at 1 release per day. Heh :-)

npsimons 12y ago
It's actually a good idea. People often don't bother version-controlling simple stuff because it's a hassle. Here's the thing that's funny to me: git is easy. Everyone (especially mercurial users) goes on about how horrible the UI is, but when I think of git, I think of how similar it is to RCS: easy, quick, and simple. With both, I can diff things and check in changes very quickly. I have a bunch of single files in RCS which I'm moving over to git because it's a no brainer: all the speed and ease of use with a ton of advantages (such as dead simple replication) if I ever need them.
- encoderer 12y ago
  I love git. I'm a git power user. I've used git as the datastore for a CRM I built. But I respectfully disagree. Git is not "easy." You've been conditioned. You and I know that it's very very hard to lose work or lose commits with Git. I'd say it's nearly impossible to do on accident. But in my first month with Git I rewrote several things because I messed up somehow and couldn't figure it out. I would hose my checkout and resort to doing a new clone. I've since helped run a big transition from SVN to Git and saw the same struggles there. Git is power tools for my code. I could never go back to SVN. But it's not easy.
  - w_t_payne 12y ago
    I agree. Git is powerful, flexible, and (once you grok it) quite simple to understand ... but it baffles new users, and is a complete turn off for people who happen not to be software engineers, even those who are otherwise highly intelligent. I work trying to bridge the gap between a team of mathematicians and algorithms engineers, and a team of embedded software engineers. Most of the embedded software engineers "grok" git (after some practice), and are (fairly) happy using it on a day to day basis. The Mathematicians and Algorithms engineers, on the other hand, aren't really interested in getting to grips with Git (or any version control system for that matter). They'd rather spend their time thinking about mathematics and statistics. (Quite rightly). The decision to use git, whilst justifiable for many valid technical reasons, has definitely thrown up some additional challenges for me and for our organization.
  - npsimons 12y ago
    $ [git init|mkdir RCS] $ $EDITOR somefile $ [git add somefile && git commit|ci -u somefile] Not that hard to use git as a replacement for RCS. A few extra commands (not going to quibble over the fact that RCS requires checkout before edit), but that's about it. The one thing I can see going for RCS is its granularity (in only tracking single files), but that can be as much a burden as managing whole git repos, ie it depends on the use case.
  - jarek 12y ago
    It's easy to mess up a somewhat complex repo in git, but for versioning really simple things like rsync scripts or dot-files, where you have one committer, one branch, and a linear commit log, git's pretty easy. git init, git commit -am, gitk to view history or diff, done.

skywhopper 12y ago

Nothing stopping shops from writing a simple wrapper to add commiter ID and signature in a machine-readable standard way to the commit messages. Sure that could be easily gotten around. So can git's.

fetbaffe 12y ago

It is a great idea. Git is just too much of an hassle when you only have one file of TODOs, a tiny hack or what not. Why bother with checksums when an incremental integer helps me memorize what revision I'm on? However as others has pointed out, maybe the dependency on rcs was not the best choice.

icebraining 12y ago
There's life beyond git, though. Bazaar gives you incremental¹ integers and a much nicer UI. ¹ barring merges, but those shouldn't happen in these use cases
- netghost 12y ago
  Mercurial as well for what it's worth.