[TUHS] SCCS roach motel

[Luther Johnson]

When I just read your quote, this joke came to mind:

What's the difference between a public library and a software library ?

At the public library, everyone wants to check things out, but no-one
ever wants to return anything. In a source code library, everyone wants
to put something in the library, but programmers rarely want to take
anything in it out, and use it.

Maybe it doesn't seem as funny as the first time I heard it, but I think
it's still true. Maybe a similar thought is behind the 'source motel' quote.

On 12/13/2024 09:52 AM, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering has asked me to write a
> retrospective on the influence of SCCS over the last 50 years, as my
> SCCS paper was published in 1975. They consider it one of the most
> influential papers from TSE's first decade.
>
> There's a funny quote from Ken Thompson that circulates from time-to-time:
>
> "SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!"
>
> But nobody seems to know what it means exactly. As part of my
> research, I asked Ken what the quote meant, sunce I wanted to include
> it. He explained that it refers to SCCS storing binary data in its
> repository file, preventing UNIX text tools from operating on the file.
>
> Of course, this is only one of SCCS's many weaknesses. If you have
> anything funny about any of the others, post it here. I already have
> all the boring usual stuff (e.g., long-term locks, file-oriented, no
> merging).
>
> Marc Rochkind
> mrochkind.com <http://mrochkind.com>
>
>
>
>

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