Re: SSD TBW

On Sat, 22 Aug 2026 18:04:48 -0700, Don Y wrote:

> The value of version control is to be able to recreate a particular
> point-in-time of <whatever> you are controlling.

Any backup/restore system can do that, surely.

The specific value add of version control is being able to keep track
of what has changed. And more than that, to be able to pursue multiple
parallel lines of development, and be able to reconcile them later.
This is particularly important for collaborative development, which is
how a lot of open-source projects operate these days.

Why would you need to keep track of what has changed? Imagine getting
a report of a bug that has appeared in a new release, that wasn’t
noticed during development; there is a command called git-bisect, that
comes with Git, that helps you track down the precise commit that
introduced the bug.

> E.g., I have hand-drawn the icons for the "HiFi replacement" I'm
> making for my other half. Should I export those bitmaps as text
> files just to be able to preserve them AS text, instead of bitmaps?

You should have drawn them as SVG. That gives you
resolution-independent scaling, and it’s also a text-based format
(actually XML).

> Sadly, UNIX assumes file type is completely indicated by a suffix on
> a filename -- said suffix being under the control of the person who
> selected the filename.

Not quite how it works <https://www.darwinsys.com/file/>.

> It's a matter of human resources. Do I want to replace one VCS with
> another (at some amount of time, effort and risk), just to say I did
> so? Will I be THAT much "better off" after having made the switch
> than if I had continued using the system that had been in place when
> those things were created?

If you want to encourage others to contribute to your project, then
Git is the way to go.