[CVS] has a large interface--a discouragingly large one, in fact.
[CL] is nearly convinced that even experts don't understand it all.

In particular, many frequent CVS users aren't aware of the protocol's reporting capabilities.
You can, for example, get a handle on what the latest action in [Tcl]'s "head" has been with
  set REPOSITORY -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tcl
  set everything [exec cvs $REPOSITORY history -c -a]

  foreach line [split $everything \n] {
      foreach {type date time timezone user revision file directory
               other1 other2 other3} $line break
          # Is it worth printing out part of the "check-in comment"?
      set item [format "%s %s  %-20s %-6s   %-10s" \
                      $date $time $file $revision $user]
      lappend list $item
  }

  set count 0
  foreach item [lsort -decreasing $list] {
      puts $item
          # Just print out the last ten check-ins.
      if {[incr count] > 10} break
  }

With typical [SourceForge] activity and a high-speed connection, this takes up to half a minute
to produce such output as
  2003-07-19 01:37  Makefile             1.7      das
  2003-07-19 01:37  ChangeLog            1.1650   das
  2003-07-19 01:35  Makefile             1.5.2.3   das
  2003-07-19 01:35  ChangeLog            1.1453.2.119   das
  2003-07-18 23:35  tclProc.c            1.44.2.1   dgp
  2003-07-18 23:35  tclCompile.c         1.43.2.3   dgp
  2003-07-18 23:35  tclBasic.c           1.75.2.5   dgp
  2003-07-18 23:35  init.test            1.9.2.1   dgp
  2003-07-18 23:35  init.tcl             1.55.2.1   dgp
  2003-07-18 23:35  ChangeLog            1.1453.2.118   dgp
  2003-07-18 22:17  Utf.3                1.15     dkf