[lug] OT: WAS: Tape Drives --- NOW: Emacs vs. vi !!! ;-)

[Rob Riggs]

Sexton, George wrote:

>>>everything I've ever stored?  Of course not.  At some point, you have to
>>>pick your comfort level and try to make forward progress.  For me, tar
>>>has been a Free, reliable, ubiquitous, and convenient performer so I
>>>
>
>To me, it sounds like someone justifying driving their car where none of the
>wheels have all of the lug nuts in place.
>  
>

I think a more apt analogy would be driving a VW instead of the Audi. 
(At least we've given up on the domestics... ;-)

Sometimes the cost doesn't justify the additional features. Personally, 
I've always found the BRU verification justification to be a bit 
spurious. Modern tape drives (DAT, 8mm, DLT) perform read-while-write 
data verification in hardware. Very little is gained by having BRU do 
additional verification.

I've used BRU and it's a fine tool. But I would always choose GNU tar 
for portable archives and dump/restore for system backups, while using 
reliable tape technology.

-Rob