Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:13317 comp.sources.wanted:7288
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!motcsd!mark
From: mark@motcsd.UUCP (Mark Jeghers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: naked SCCS really SCCS!
Keywords: SCCS, shell_wrapper, Microport_SystemV, obnoxious_program
Message-ID: <354@greek.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 89 18:47:19 GMT
References: <297@tree.UUCP> <123@tdl.UUCP>
Reply-To: mark@greek.UUCP (Mark Jeghers)
Organization: Motorola Computer Systems, Cupertino, CA.
Lines: 53

In article <123@tdl.UUCP> raulin@tdl.UUCP (Raulin Olivera) writes:
>In article <297@tree.UUCP>, stever@tree.UUCP (Steve Rudek) writes:
>> 
>>   "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.

Oh, well okay...*ahem*...ouch ouch ouch.  Oh what pain.  Oh what pain.

I hope that was convincing... :-)

>> 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.

Bullshit.  It has done a damn good job for me, and front-end interfaces just
add more steps without adding appreciable functionality or ease of use.

>> I see stupid syntax requirements like:
>>   "admin -ilang s.lang

	[ delirium over admin(1) usage deleted ]

>> I could rant about other stupid aspects of the implementation but what's
>> the point?

Indeed.

>> I need to access the functionality of sccs without having
>> to deal with the ugliness of the implementation.

Poor baby.  It is pretty hard to use without Bert and Ernie dancing on
the screen.  A few *tiny* scripts can cover whatever you don't like
about the command usages.  Really, now, isn't this whole thing being
overblown just a *little* ??

>How hard is it to use the 3 most routine commands of sccs which are
>admin (to create the archive), get (to extract versions from the 
>archive), and delta (to return a version to the archive)?

Like I said above, "ouch ouch ouch.  Oh what pain." :-)

>I find the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Speaking of advantages:

- it works
- it is uniform over a lot of machines (i.e. a UNIX standard of sorts)
- it works with make(1) nicely
-- 
Mark Jeghers                       "I'm the King of Eight and I'm here to state
Motorola Computer Systems              that everything here has to total eight!
....uunet!apple!motcsd!greek!mark          The gaurds, for instance, at my gate
...hplabs!hpda!/                              must always total exactly eight!"