Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
by icebraining on Saturday July 11, 2020 @08:33PM
(#23807529)
This exists: it's the git-annex assistant! You just have to configure the "annex.largefiles", because by default git-annex doesn't actually commit the content of the files, since it's designed to handle large binary files.
But if you set that option and run the Assistant, it'll auto-commit files when they change, and can even auto-sync them with other computers, cloud storage, Android devices, etc.
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
by still_grokking on Saturday July 11, 2020 @06:29PM
(#23806701)
Sine decades I wish this would be a std. OS or FS feature!
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
by boring_twenties on Sunday July 12, 2020 @07:20AM
(#23810545)
Back in the stone age I worked at a place that used a VCS called ClearCase. It supported exactly this, you'd be able to append things like @revision or @branchname or @timestamp to file and directory names to access them.
Unfortunately, it required (IIRC) three full time people to administer the server. As for the client (my workstation), it required a proprietary kernel module which would panic about once a week. I'm told our license cost $1m/year (2001 dollars).
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
by vtbassmatt on Saturday July 11, 2020 @10:18PM
(#23808154)
VMS did it: https://wiki.vmssoftware.com/File_version
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
by dreamcompiler on Saturday July 11, 2020 @10:50PM
(#23808342)
Indeed. I still miss VMS because of its automatic versioning, with version numbers being an explicit field of the pathname.
Re:Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?
by chipotle_coyote on Saturday July 11, 2020 @11:22PM
(#23808537)
It's something that exists in macOS, but as far as I know applications have to explicitly choose to use it. Most applications that support it have a "File > Revert To > Browse All Versions..." command available. BBEdit -- as often the case -- has a more useful variant of it, which brings up a diff window with "Search > Find Differences > Compare Against Previous Version". (It actually lets you choose any recorded previous version.)
So many times I want to VC a directory but don’t care about commit messages, branching, or other jazz more suited to collaborative work.
With init-lite, all the power of Git is still there - and you can use any commit or command you want, but it’s default would be to simply VC for every file save. In other words, a file save IS a message-less commit.