Re: Subversion erase original date of files ??

On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 10:12:07AM -0400, Scott Palmer wrote:
>
> I'll just put in my 2 cents...

<steve add his two cents to the pot> "Call."

> Often the timestamp of the file is the only meaningful indicator of
> which "version" of a particular file I have. It is a property that is
> available to anyone, even end users of our software can easily check
> dates to see if they have an old file or something like that.

My experience[1] is that if the only indication of file version is a
timestamp, then you have nothing more than misleading, useless piece of
noise. Timestamps are *way* to fragile to place any trust in. Oh sure,
they work often enough to suck you in, and then blow up at the critical
moment (e.g. confirming over the phone that the client's version of
the library is newer than the buggy one, and spending the next three
hours (invariably Friday from 5pm to 8pm :-() trying to find some new
problem).

I'm vaguely disturbed by the faith some people have with them. It's sort
of like people believing in Santa Claus. It's cute and all, but really?

And does MS really base their hotpatch scheme on file dates, instead of
looking at the version resource or some other signature? Ye gods. So as
a virus author, all I have to do to prevent the buggy DLL from being
patched is update the timestamp on it? That's seem unlikely, even for
MS. (Or was the original poster talking about some home-grown scheme? If
so, bad idea.)

Hmmm, I seem to have drifted off into a rant...

Steve

[1] If anyone cares: 15+ years of development and support work on a
variety of machines from DOS to OpenVMS (where each file had, IIRC, *4*
timestamps, each updated in various known but baroquely complicated
circumstances.)

-- 
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask
about Exchange Server next.
                           -- (Stolen from the net)
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