Visual Source Safe?
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I've asked for advice here about source control for my VB.NET web application. I'd like to use something that integrates into VS2005. Many people recommend that I do not use Visual Source Safe, but instead use SubVersion with AnkhSVN and Tortoise. Does anyone like Visual Source Safe? What makes SubVersion so much better?
zjspeed wrote:
What makes SubVersion so much better?
Three thousand billion additional features? It's spelled Subversion by the way (no capital V). VSS is the ONLY SCM product I've used that has ever lost checkins. Right after it did that (twice within a week), I switched to CVS. I was on CVS for 6 years, before I switched to Subversion. Last time I checked, VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them. Subversion doesn't, which is definately a plus. Subversion has SUPERIOR tagging and branching mechanisms compared to VSS. The TortoisSVN plugin for the Windows Explorer has some really nice gems, but one stands out in particular: the conflict editor. If you have a conflict due to contradicting checkins, the conflict editor makes sorting out the conflicts a breeze.
-- Fun for the whole family - except grandma and grandpa
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I love the first item.. :-D
-- Filmed on Location
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Three weeks ago. I tried them mainly as VSS replacement, but finally figured purchasing three additional licences was "cheaper" than migrating and retraining. Explorability was a bit of a letdown, and handling is too different. Maybe we are a weird job, Get-Edit-Merge? Heck, I tried to allow concurrent checkouts, but everyone omplained and wanted exclusive checkout back. I tried to keep it for personal use, but I'm back at ZipStudio[^]
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!peterchen wrote:
Explorability
:confused: Repo-browser?
peterchen wrote:
Get-Edit-Merge?
The one and only way...
peterchen wrote:
Heck, I tried to allow concurrent checkouts, but everyone omplained and wanted exclusive checkout back.
But why??
-- No humans were probed in the making of this episode
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peterchen wrote:
Explorability
:confused: Repo-browser?
peterchen wrote:
Get-Edit-Merge?
The one and only way...
peterchen wrote:
Heck, I tried to allow concurrent checkouts, but everyone omplained and wanted exclusive checkout back.
But why??
-- No humans were probed in the making of this episode
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
Repo-browser?
Sorry, I meant "figuring out how to use it by exploring the UI".
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
But why??
No Merge maybe. Even with better merge tools than VSS builtin, it's still a source of mistakes.
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us! -
I've asked for advice here about source control for my VB.NET web application. I'd like to use something that integrates into VS2005. Many people recommend that I do not use Visual Source Safe, but instead use SubVersion with AnkhSVN and Tortoise. Does anyone like Visual Source Safe? What makes SubVersion so much better?
SourceSafe works well enough for small projects, provided you properly manage the database. For large databases, it's simply too fragile, and it's sadly lacking in its implementation of features such as pinning and branching is pretty poor. For all its many flaws, one thing I'll say in VSS's favour is that the UI is straightforward and easy to pick up. It's also been largely project (rather than file) orientated since day 1 - something that took a long time to become the norm among SCC systems. SourceGear Vault is a far better alternative if you value your data and are comfortable in the VSS UI.
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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peterchen wrote:
Explorability
:confused: Repo-browser?
peterchen wrote:
Get-Edit-Merge?
The one and only way...
peterchen wrote:
Heck, I tried to allow concurrent checkouts, but everyone omplained and wanted exclusive checkout back.
But why??
-- No humans were probed in the making of this episode
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
peterchen wrote:
Get-Edit-Merge?
The one and only way...
Not necessarily. With normal coding, if you're a one (or even two or three) person team, then exclusive checkout is fine. The other case where exclusive checkout is fine is if you have a highly cohesive architecture, with work allocation split along architectural lines. Then, it's likely that the people working on the team won't have checkout collisions.
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I've asked for advice here about source control for my VB.NET web application. I'd like to use something that integrates into VS2005. Many people recommend that I do not use Visual Source Safe, but instead use SubVersion with AnkhSVN and Tortoise. Does anyone like Visual Source Safe? What makes SubVersion so much better?
I've used it a lot - I'd use it for small teams (two or three max). And also, don't put it on a network share...I've only ever had corruption when my SourceSafe database is on a network share. I like it when using VS2003+, because of the integration. However, for my team at work, I'm planning on us moving to Subversion in the New Year - we've got about 10 people on the team, and I don't trust VSS for that many people. I've used Subversion on OS X and find it OK to use. The other SCM system I've used much is Dimensions[^], when working on our embedded systems teams. It's a bit heavy weight, though!
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zjspeed wrote:
What makes SubVersion so much better?
Three thousand billion additional features? It's spelled Subversion by the way (no capital V). VSS is the ONLY SCM product I've used that has ever lost checkins. Right after it did that (twice within a week), I switched to CVS. I was on CVS for 6 years, before I switched to Subversion. Last time I checked, VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them. Subversion doesn't, which is definately a plus. Subversion has SUPERIOR tagging and branching mechanisms compared to VSS. The TortoisSVN plugin for the Windows Explorer has some really nice gems, but one stands out in particular: the conflict editor. If you have a conflict due to contradicting checkins, the conflict editor makes sorting out the conflicts a breeze.
-- Fun for the whole family - except grandma and grandpa
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them
It doesn't mandate exclusive checkout anymore.
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
If you have a conflict due to contradicting checkins
Of course, if you do use exclusive checkout, then conflicts aren't a problem :-D
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Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them
It doesn't mandate exclusive checkout anymore.
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
If you have a conflict due to contradicting checkins
Of course, if you do use exclusive checkout, then conflicts aren't a problem :-D
Stuart Dootson wrote:
Of course, if you do use exclusive checkout, then conflicts aren't a problem
Conflicts of interest... ;)
-- [LIVE] From Omicron Persei 8
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peterchen wrote:
Damn - CP ate my reply :( (it was long)
Speaking of tools you should upgrade to...
---- I just want you to be happy; That's my only little wish...
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zjspeed wrote:
What makes SubVersion so much better?
Three thousand billion additional features? It's spelled Subversion by the way (no capital V). VSS is the ONLY SCM product I've used that has ever lost checkins. Right after it did that (twice within a week), I switched to CVS. I was on CVS for 6 years, before I switched to Subversion. Last time I checked, VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them. Subversion doesn't, which is definately a plus. Subversion has SUPERIOR tagging and branching mechanisms compared to VSS. The TortoisSVN plugin for the Windows Explorer has some really nice gems, but one stands out in particular: the conflict editor. If you have a conflict due to contradicting checkins, the conflict editor makes sorting out the conflicts a breeze.
-- Fun for the whole family - except grandma and grandpa
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
Last time I checked, VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them.
It doesn't. There's an admin option to determine whether checkouts are exclusive.
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
Last time I checked, VSS required you to lock files in order to edit them.
It doesn't. There's an admin option to determine whether checkouts are exclusive.
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
That option must've become available after I ditched it.. Anyway, the loss of code was what made me ditch it all together. (I rarely get really angry, but after having lost a days worth of code, smoke tends to come out of my ears...)
-- Fun for the whole family - except grandma and grandpa
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zjspeed wrote:
Does anyone like Visual Source Safe?
:omg: I've been fighting with Visual Source Safe all week. It is the most irritating Microsoft product I have ever had to deal with. We have Team System at work and I'm just waiting for VSS to be changed over to the source control in Team System. In VSS's favour I will say that if you have a stable project that only requires changes to existing files, maybe the odd extra file here or there (but no new projects, solutions, etc.) it works fine and I'm very happy with it. But beyond simple check in and check out of files... :sigh:
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos
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Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
Repo-browser?
Sorry, I meant "figuring out how to use it by exploring the UI".
Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
But why??
No Merge maybe. Even with better merge tools than VSS builtin, it's still a source of mistakes.
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!You'll probably get along better with SourceGear's Vault[^]. It's intended to seem familiar to VSS users. You can use it in either 'VSS'-like mode, where files are read-only until checked out, and checking out takes an exclusive lock to prevent others checking out, or alternatively in 'CVS'-like mode where all files are writeable and checking out isn't exclusive (and in fact isn't really necessary). Different users can use different options - my colleagues almost all use VSS mode while I use edit-merge-commit. Speaking of merge it's only an issue if two developers actually edit the same source file at the same time. Instead of preventing one developer from working, as happens with exclusive locks, developers have to integrate the changes from the first checkin before they can commit. Often, though, the two developers have not made changes on the same lines, so the automatic merge gives the right results. If merge conflicts are happening frequently, you maybe need to consider whether the physical layout of the code is correct, or whether the work should be divided differently between developers.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
peterchen wrote:
Get-Edit-Merge?
The one and only way...
Not necessarily. With normal coding, if you're a one (or even two or three) person team, then exclusive checkout is fine. The other case where exclusive checkout is fine is if you have a highly cohesive architecture, with work allocation split along architectural lines. Then, it's likely that the people working on the team won't have checkout collisions.
Stuart Dootson wrote:
The other case where exclusive checkout is fine is if you have a highly cohesive architecture, with work allocation split along architectural lines. Then, it's likely that the people working on the team won't have checkout collisions.
But then they won't have merge conflicts either, and the explicit checkout step just becomes annoying.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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I've asked for advice here about source control for my VB.NET web application. I'd like to use something that integrates into VS2005. Many people recommend that I do not use Visual Source Safe, but instead use SubVersion with AnkhSVN and Tortoise. Does anyone like Visual Source Safe? What makes SubVersion so much better?
-
I've asked for advice here about source control for my VB.NET web application. I'd like to use something that integrates into VS2005. Many people recommend that I do not use Visual Source Safe, but instead use SubVersion with AnkhSVN and Tortoise. Does anyone like Visual Source Safe? What makes SubVersion so much better?