revStacks hitting my openField handler in library

Dr. Hawkins dochawk at gmail.com
Sun Nov 22 12:01:59 EST 2015


On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 7:24 PM, J. Landman Gay <jacque at hyperactivesw.com>
wrote:

> No deficiency.


The deficiency isn't in the messaging system, but the monolithic file
structure.  The only reason I got into this is the staggering amount of
space being taken for each checkpoint.

Moving into the 1990s with some kind of revision or version control, or
even into the 1970s with diff and patch, is a critical need and an
essential element.  Not having this is a gaping underprovision in something
that suggests itself for commercial or scientific use.

Yes, I know there are a project or two that try to achieve this.  But this
shouldn't be a project; it is unacceptable that it isn't integral.

It should be trivial to go back a few minutes, or a couple of hours, to any
point, and isolate changes. This is not "add on", but basic functionality.


In a side note . . . something like 16 years ago, I had to drive from IA to
CA and back to pick up my family who had gone to help with my sister in law
in her first cancer.  This was, naturally, during the end-crunch,
time-critical time of my dissertation, and meant almost round-the-clock
driving for me to get there, and round the clock on the way back.

Accidentally changing lanes into a bad country song, my transmission blew
suddenly driving through Omaha (one moment all was well, and the next it
suddenly dropped all the fluid, and was toasted by the time I pulled over).

I had a paper copy of my latest marked up by my three (!) committee
chairmen, but an outdated version of the dissertation on the laptop.

So I made a copy, continued editing, ran diff to get the differences, and
applied patch back on my main machine.  You just can't do that with ms word
(or livecode).

Using LyX/LaTeX also meant that when the dissertation nazis in the graduate
college were done, it took under 10 minutes to revise (over half of which
was making changes, realizing they were wrong, calling to confirm, and
undoing those changes).


-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462



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