[Unison-hackers] history of Unison?

[Benjamin Pierce]

Hi Alan,

Here's what I recall -- others can fill in any details I miss...

1994ish: BCP, having overwritten files the wrong direction between  
laptop and server for the n+1th time, pounds fist on desk and says,  
"It can't be that hard to write a file synchronizer..."  First attempt  
written as a shell script that weekend.

1995ish: Cedric Fournet and BCP write a more serious synchronizer with  
a proper user interface, in Pict.  (This was the largest program ever  
written in Pict.  Was a lot of fun. :-)

1996-97: Sundar Balasubramaniam and BCP write a new tool called "snc",  
in Java, duplicating the functionality of the Pict version.  It works,  
basically, but is hampered by a multitude of shortcomings in Java  
implementations available at the time.

1998-2001: Trevor Jim proposes building a new synchronizer  
implementation, using OCaml and focusing on cross-platform issues  
(Windows to Unix).  Trevor and BCP are soon joined by Jerome Vouillon,  
who adds rocket power to the implementation effort.  The current  
codebase grew directly out of this one.  The name Unison started here.

2001-now: Big contributions by many more people, including Alan  
Schmitt, Malo Denielou, Zhe Yang, Sylvain Gommier, Norman Ramsey, Ben  
Willmore, Jacques Garrigue, and Matthieu Goulay.

Best,

     - Benjamin


On Nov 27, 2008, at 2:11 AM, Alan Schmitt wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Where can I find information about the history of Unison (except by  
> asking here)?
>
> Specifically, I'd like to know when it started (under that name),  
> and if the implementations were (in that order) in shell scripts,  
> Pict, Java, and Caml.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alan
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