I recently had someone say that versioning files could/should be done like this:
…where the date could also be a version number.
Reasons why this is the dumbest shite I’ve ever heard:
Programmers have known for much longer than other folks that versioning systems are the only way to go. We call them VCSs or SCM’s. They have names like git, bazaar, cvs, svn, mercurial, and darcs.
What other’s never realized (or perhaps we never told) was that you can check any, and I do mean any, digital file into these systems. Now, sometimes this isn’t the greatest way to track changes in a photo or, say, illustrator file, but at least it’s something.
Adobe has stepped into the breach, somewhat, and has a system called Version Cue that you can use to manage and streamline file collaboration in work groups.
The other item is that metadata is better at tracking creation dates & is more prevalent than most people know. Metadata has been attached to files for the longest time in the computing world. Most digital devices automatically tag files createed & modified with metadata, including some custom schema and extensions of existing schema. Why are more people using these options to search & file more often?
Is it that things like ACDSee need to be created so that people feel like the meta data is tangible? (All it uses is metadata and a simple flat file DB to organize photos.)
People should be using those metadata-searching preferences in their OS more often:
Don’t throw versioning into a lecture where you cover it in all of two seconds by scribbling on the board about putting dates in file names. Just don’t.
