Re: SSD TBW

On 8/23/2026 12:42 AM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2026 19:15:19 -0700, Don Y wrote:
> 
>> On 8/22/2026 6:19 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> That is time based. You want to declare a "version" -- branch -- of
>> the development and capture THAT.
> 
> Fine. Store that info as part of the metadata for the backup snapshot.

Another "bolt on solution" instead of addressing the real issue.

Your VCS can't handle anything but text -- so, pretend anything that is
NOT text doesn't count.

Sounds like software developers deciding what the world should be like
instead of adapting to the world that exists.  And, using "what is"
in place of "what should be".

>> The advantage of saving entire development system states is you
>> don't have to wonder what OTHER things affect the operation of the
>> tool that you need to access, again.
> 
> Yes, but again, that’s what backup snapshots are for. VCSes serve a
> somewhat different purpose.

No.  You're just limiting them to that.

P4 seems to be able to address these issues.
    <https://www.perforce.com/blog/vcs/version-control-for-binary-files>
"Ah, but that's PAID software; we're too cheap to use such things!"

>> Here's a photo of my back yard.  Here's another.  What has changed
>> (please indicate that in a human-friendly form).
> 
> Here’s a photo of someone else’s back yard. It started out similar to
> yours, but has undergone its own renovations. You like some of what
> they’ve done, and would like to selectively apply those changes to
> your own back yard, which has in its turn evolved somewhat in the
> meantime. How would you do that?

Can he even DESCRIBE what he did?  Ask Da Vinci how you could paint
a Mona Lisa.  I'm sure his explanation would all be textual, right?
And, sufficient to enable you to reproduce a Mona Barbara...

>> Not everything is "source code".
> 
> VCSes are best precisely at dealing with textual source code, and with
> anything that can be represented as that.

No.  Just the VCSs that you've used and just with the limitations
you've set upon your work style.

>> file(1) is almost WORSE than using file extensions. As with a Mac, I
>> (or an application) should be definitively declaring the form and
>> content of a file, instead of leaving that to something else to
>> deduce or declare (possibly incorrectly)
> 
> Apple had the old “FourCC” or “OSType” type/creator system decades
> ago, but abandoned all that in favour of file extensions.

Because the rest of THEIR world went to file view extensions
as having significance.  That doesn't mean it's the right answer.

Why does "foo.c" have to be a C source file?  Why can't "foo"
serve to name that thing?  If you insist on knowing what sort
of thing "foo" represents, then have something augment its
name with that information.  You don't hesitate to augment
its name with its size, owner, access permissions -- who decided
that THOSE were the most important bits of metadata??

Just because they are convenient to access doesn't make them
important.  If a file type was important and convenient
to access (by design), you'd display it, too, right?

> These days, we have MIME types. And common Linux filesystems allow
> those to be attached to files in a similar way to those type/creator
> codes on the old Apple Mac systems. Except MIME types are a somewhat
> more extensible system, using more descriptive strings instead of
> cryptic four-byte codes.

The limitation of 4 byte codes is unrealistic.  4 billion different
*types* of files?  That's not enough so we have to resort to mime
types expressed as text (so humans can glance at them and understand their
meanings?).

Do we have 4 billion mime types?  How did mime solve THAT limitation??