using RCS to track system changes

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On Tue, Dec 27, 2005 at 10:04:34AM -0500, Larry Underhill wrote:
> The only place we seem to differ is that I do setup a RCS
> subdirectory in places that I need version control. However, I do it
> with a symlink that points to common directory (/var/RCS).

Don't you ever have file name collisions?  (And do you ever have a
problem going from /var/RCS/something to the original?  I guess
"locate" helps there.)

I am an emacs user, so I just do ctrl-x v v, emacs asks if it should
create an RCS subdirectory, I say yes, and I have my original
preserved.  Thereafter when I tell emacs to make the buffer readable
(ctrl-x q) it checks it out, and when I am done I mark it readonly
(ctrl-x q again) and it asks me for the checkin comment.

I admit I haven't referred back to earlier versions terribly often,
but the descipline is very easy, so I am not bothered with whether the
effort is wasted.

MUCH more valuable to me is keeping a system wide log file where I
make dated notes of what I have done, what problems I might have had,
including frequent pasting in of command lines (sans output) I have
executed and want to see again (exact rsync syntax that works for some
task and doesn't create an extra subdirectory, for example).

Another thing I have done on occasion is leave kb-readme.txt files,
usually how to invoke some program for my purposes so I don't have to
keep digging up the same options every time I use it.



-kb