Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:13225 comp.sources.wanted:7238
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pacbell!sactoh0!tree!stever
From: stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: naked SCCS really SCCS!
Keywords: SCCS, shell_wrapper, Microport_SystemV, obnoxious_program
Message-ID: <297@tree.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 89 21:15:16 GMT
Organization: TREE BBS (916)-349-0385 Sacramento, Ca
Lines: 31


  "As it turns out, SCCS was designed to have a user interface wrapper put
  around it, and would be FAIRLY PAINFUL to use without such an interface.
  For the purposes of this discussion, we assume the presence of the
  interface known simply as sccs, a public domain interface distributed
  with SunOS and BSD systems."
  --Eric Allman, UNIX_Review, March 1989, page 72

Few things in this world irritate me more than a good idea implemented in a
brain-dead fashion.  SCCS, as distributed by AT&T with no front end, is
unfinished software which is generally more trouble to use than it is worth.
I see stupid syntax requirements like:

  "admin -ilang s.lang
  All SCCS files *must* have names that begin with 's.', hence, s.lang"
  --AT&T Unix System V.2 manual

And I start thinking ugly thoughts like "maybe the author of sccs used LSD
on the job?"  I mean, If all sccs files "*must*" start with "s." then why
*must* I type in "lang s.lang?"  Is it unreasonable to expect admin to deduce
this?

I could rant about other stupid aspects of the implementation but what's
the point?  I need to access the functionality of sccs without having
to deal with the ugliness of the implementation.  This system has sh, ksh,
csh and perl.  I'd greatly appreciate it if someone would send me a friendly
front end to sccs and save me the trouble of having to write my own from
scratch.
-- 
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Steve Rudek  {ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac OR ames!pacbell!sactoh0} !tree!stever