
SCCS: The Posix Standard Source Code Control System (2017) - beefhash
http://sccs.sourceforge.net/
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saxonww
There's also a GNU replacement CSSC[0]. I had to set this up at work 6-7 years
ago to handle a very old code base that no one wanted to modernize. The repo
was delivered to me on an old SCO system. I was able to move it to a modern
system using CSSC, where it still lives today and needs almost no attention.

One benefit of these ancient tools is that they are effectively done. They've
been beaten on for years; all behavior and quirks are well understood, and
whatever the promised feature set is, usually exists and works exactly as
promised.

[0]: [https://www.gnu.org/software/cssc/](https://www.gnu.org/software/cssc/)

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setquk
They're also extremely easy to conceptualise and use.

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russfink
I started with SCCS, then moved to RCS, then to CVS for a long while. I'm now
an occasional Git user. The number one problem with SCCS is a locked checkout
paradigm: one person gets to edit at a time. Also, it doesn't manage
directories, only files. Read here for some alternatives:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_version_contro...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_version_control_software)

~~~
masklinn
> The number one problem with SCCS is a locked checkout paradigm

That's common amongst the older breed of VCS: VSS or Perforce do the same.

It's useful when working on binary files which can't be merged. Some
centralised VCS (e.g. SVN) can be opted into locked checkout on a per-file
basis.

Definitely not a great default though.

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ahoka
Once upon a time I forgot to uncheckout a file in clearcase and went on a
vacation...

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WalterGR
Was the admin able to unblock your coworkers?

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ahoka
The official process was so complicated that they just waited until I got back
next week.

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arka2147483647
Is this just a historic artifact, or does it have some practical use?

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beefhash
I think it's somewhere inbetween, similar to the heirloom-doctools. You can
interact with any live SCCS repo -- if you find any outside of BitKeeper
(whose format seems to have diverged anyway).

And for some reason it's in POSIX. I'm pretty sure nobody even cares about its
existence in POSIX, but it's technically there. Though I can't think of a
single OS that ships SCCS; OpenBSD ships GNU CVS and their own RCS (OpenCVS is
sadly in eternal limbo[1]), not sure what FreeBSD does. Linux distributions
generally don't ship anything. And git has basically won anyway.

[1] [http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Status-of-
OpenCVS-...](http://openbsd-archive.7691.n7.nabble.com/Status-of-OpenCVS-
td318199.html)

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pjmlp
> Though I can't think of a single OS that ships SCCS

Commercial UNIX systems do.

Check the documentation of Aix, HP-UX and similar.

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dfox
One notable thing about SCCS is that it in fact played important role in
creation of git as BitKeeper is direct descendant of SCCS.

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qwerty456127
Pragmatically, why would anybody need anything but git nowadays?

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tannhaeuser
1\. git, until very recently (but haven't checked), requires you to check out
the whole repo even if you're just interested in only a subdir or single file

2\. Suppose you're implementing a Wiki where docs are version-controlled on a
fs mounted by the web server. git doesn't really fit this use case since you'd
need a shared checkout dir, whereas eg. RCS does, provided locking is accepted
or even preferred

3\. on-site version control of config files in /etc when you don't do full-
blown DevOps

