final_FINAL_revised2.docx

Not written by someone who doesn’t understand version control.

report.docx
report_v2.docx
final.docx
final_FINAL.docx
final_FINAL_revised2.docx

One string, four claims

  • Supersession: this replaces final.docx
  • Sequence: a second round happened; there was a first
  • Currency: as of now, this is the one to use
  • Finality: final, twice, asserting nothing further is coming

No supersedes field. No current flag. No round counter.

So it all goes in the name

A file's fields: size, modified, created and owner are set by the system and greyed out; the name field is highlighted as the only one a person can write.

The mechanism explains the shape

No schema: a claim can’t be corrected, only appended to. The strings grow rightward and never shrink.

No authority: final is a claim, not a guarantee.

No exclusivity: anyone can file a competing claim in the same field.

Two different things

Versioning: tracking what’s current. As old as revision itself.

Version control: software that does it automatically. About sixty years old.

Most people writing documents have never opened the second one.

This week is about what people do in its absence.

Next week

What a file actually is, underneath the name someone gave it.

Then: why anyone needs to write revised2 to say so.

Sources

  • How Do People Organize Their Desks? Implications for the Design of Office Information Systems Thomas W. Malone, ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 1(1), 1983, 99–112. The study that named filers and pilers, and found that an organising scheme is used to remind as much as to retrieve. dl.acm.org