From:	"Tim 'Zastai' Van Holder" <zastai AT hotmail DOT com>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
References:	<200008241754 DOT MAA13001 AT darwin DOT sfbr DOT org>
Subject:	Re: cvs, rcs, and diff
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Date:	Thu, 24 Aug 2000 18:19:12 GMT
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"Jeff Williams" <jeffw AT darwin DOT sfbr DOT org> wrote in message
news:200008241754 DOT MAA13001 AT darwin DOT sfbr DOT org...
> From INSTALL for cvs-1.10:
>
>     Unlike previous versions of CVS, you do not need to install RCS
>     or GNU diff.
>
> Ok, I can understand that CVS might not want to require RCS, since CVS
> itself is an alternative to RCS for version control.
No it isn't an alternative, it's afront-end.

> But why provide your own `diff'?  Doesn't that go against the Unix
> philosophy of having lots of basic utilities, each one doing its thing
> extremely well, with close cooperation between programs?
Maybe; but I think that since CVS is a rather critical application, they
decided it would be best to integrate the things they used, so they did
not have to complicate things by handling different versions of the tools,
and to remain functional if one of the external programs is missing or
broken.
Not using external applications also reduces security issues, I suppose.

If you want the correct answer, post your message again to gnu.cvs.help
or gnu.cvs.bug; the CVS developers read those groups and will likely be
able to provide a better insight into their decisions than I can :-)

--
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