Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: SCCS vs RCS
Message-ID: <1784@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 8 Jun 89 19:03:34 GMT
References: <19885@adm.BRL.MIL> <2934@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 15

>When you make changes in these two systems, they keep diffs for all of the
>different revisions.  The main difference is that SCCS keeps diffs that apply
>to the original version

(Another one for the "frequently asked questions" list?)  This isn't
true; SCCS basically keeps all the versions in one big list, with "begin
delta thus-and-such" and "end delta thus-and-such" entries.  Thus, the
time to retrieve a given delta is pretty much independent of the
distance of the delta you're retrieving from the original version. 

RCS *does* apply the deltas to the latest revision, so the time pretty much
increases as you move further away from that version.  RCS may be a bit
faster at retrieving the later version because it doesn't have to pay
any attention to any deltas, while SCCS has to pay attention to the
delta information on all retrievals.