Alright, let’s talk about this ppvs thing I spent some time on recently. I’d heard a bit about it, mostly whispers here and there, sounded kind of old-school but maybe solid? Decided to give it a proper try myself.
Getting Started
So, first step, I needed a project. I picked that little utility script I wrote a while back, the one for sorting my photo backups. It felt small enough to handle. I sat down, cleared my desk, and really tried to follow the ppvs steps I’d jotted down from that forum thread.
The process basically involved:
- Making specific backup folders. Like, really specific naming conventions.
- Keeping a manual log file. Every change, big or small, had to be written down. Time, date, what I changed, why I changed it.
- There wasn’t much tooling, it was mostly just about being super organized with files and notes.
Took me a solid morning just to get the initial setup right. Felt a bit clunky, honestly, like driving a manual car after years of automatic.
Hitting Some Snags
Okay, where it started to get tricky was when I actually made changes. I tweaked the script to handle video files too. Then I had to remember to update the log file, exactly right. Then copy the files over to the new version folder. After a few days of tinkering, going back and forth, things got confusing.
Which version had the half-finished video feature? Which one was the stable photo-only version? The log file helped, but only if I remembered everything. One missed entry and things could get weird. Rolling back a specific change? Oof. That meant manually comparing files and copying bits over. It felt fragile, like one mistake could mess up the whole history.
Why Bother Then?
It sounds a bit daft, right? Why wrestle with this ppvs thing? Well, it reminds me of something from way back. I used to work part-time at this dusty old library during college. They had this ancient card catalog system, physical cards, drawers, the whole nine yards. Everything was manual. Filing new cards, updating old ones, tracking borrowed books… it was slow, meticulous work.
Most people hated it. But Mrs. Davison, the head librarian, she loved it. She knew that system inside out. She always said it forced you to be deliberate, to think about each book, each entry. You couldn’t just click a button; you had to physically handle the information.
Trying out ppvs felt a bit like that. In a world of automated everything, doing it manually forced me to slow down. To really consider each change I was making to my script. It wasn’t efficient, not by a long shot. But it was… deliberate. Maybe that old forum poster had a point, in a weird, niche way.
My Takeaway
So, after fiddling with ppvs for a week or so? It’s definitely not for everyday use, not for big projects, not for teams. It’s too slow, too error-prone. Modern tools exist for very good reasons.
But…
- For a tiny personal project? Maybe.
- As an exercise in being meticulous? Perhaps.
- If you enjoy the process itself, like Mrs. Davison enjoyed her cards? Sure.
It forces a certain kind of discipline. For me, though, the practical drawbacks are just too big. It was an interesting experiment, a trip down a different kind of path, but I’m definitely switching back to my usual tools now. Glad I tried it, glad to be done with it.
