Re: vcs for one person

[Bob Proulx]

Phil Williams wrote:
> I am looking for a simple version control system for use by one 
> programmer writing a small MATLAB system with GUI. Is RCS suitable?

Hmm...  You are writing to an RCS specific mailing list asking for an
opinion about revision control systems and as to whether rcs is
suitable.  I don't see how you can get an unbiased answer!  Many of us
have used rcs quite successfully in very similar situations.  So
therefore I think the answer can only be yes.  You wouldn't fail.

Important considerations are the operating system under which you are
running, the editor environment and its integration with the revision
control tool, whether you will be interacting with other operating
systems, whether it is important to version your directory hierarchy,
whether you are working with changes to sets of files all together and
similar things.  RCS is a single file by single file based system and
doesn't know anything about directories, which is fine for many
applications.  It is very well known and understood and has good
integration into many editors.

RCS is also a very important and very long lived legacy tool.  It will
certainly work fine.  However I am not sure it is the best tool for a
new user today.  Probably it is most important today for use dealing
with legacy systems.  If you have rcs files then you will use rcs to
deal with them.  It is a good workhorse of many well loved
environments.

But in the last few years there have been huge advances in the field
of version control such as the development of distributed version
control systems.  If you want to consolidate your learning to a single
tool that will provide follow-on knowledge for use in environments
with other people then you might want to learn one of the more modern
tools.  I use and recommend Git.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_revision_control_software

If you choose to use rcs then we will certainly do our best to help
you here on this mailing list.

Bob