Applying RCS and SCCS: From Source Control to Project Control (Nutshell Handbooks)

Don Bolinger is a software engineer in the Research Institute of the Open Software Foundation, where he works with the Mach microkernel and serverized UNIX systems. He has labored on, in, and under various UNIX-like environments for around 15 years. His first exposure to project control came long ago via an m4-based front-end to make, which demonstrated how easy and useful (not to say necessary) it is to write such extensions under UNIX. Subsequent work on many other tools taught him the value of discipline and a healthy respect for prior art, both of which he hopes this book manages to pass along. Don got his B.A. in English from Yale University, and finds natural languages just as engaging as the programming kind. He enjoys French history, culture, and wine (not necessarily in that order). Tan Bronson is currently director of software engineering at Hill Arts & Entertain ment, in Guilford, Connnecticut, where he works on providing ticketing to the performing arts and related industries. Tan's been working on or around UNIX systems since his exposure to Version 6 UNIX 15 years ago. On Version 6 UNIX he started writing drivers, and over the years worked his way "up to" applications. His first exposure to source code control was a homebrew system that built software that was cross-compiled on a Vax for a 68010 UNIX box, and ran on the same Vax. It quickly grew to a more "general purpose" collection of tools. Over the years he's tried to take advantage of all the good ideas he's encountered building and controlling projects, and help other people have better control over the software project they need to release and maintain. Tan got his B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Maine at Orono, and spends his spare time with his family and working on a variety of home construction projects. (Unfortunately, RCS doesn't apply to these!)