[eclipsed4utoo]

At my company, we have been using Microsoft SourceSafe for the entire time I've been here(almost 4 years), and they were using it long before I got here.

However, my boss sent out an email today linking to this post by Scott Hanselman, so it seems as though he is up for moving to something different.

I think it's come down to CVS or Subversion. I have no real experience with either one, so I was going to ask you guys which one you guys use and whether it's good or not. Also, for any .Net developers, how does it integrate into Visual Studio? We use Visual Studio exclusively, so that integration might be a deal breaker.

If you have used both CVS and Subversion(and even SourceSafe), can you post your experiences with the difference?

I did a search, but the only real post I found was from 2008. So I figured it would be good to give this another shot with any updates that have been made to the products.

For me, we've used SourceSafe for it's basic uses, and I haven't really had a problem with it. However, I don't have anything to compare it to.

[Dormilich]

I wouldn’t use CVS, rather the more modern SVN (Subversion) or Git.

[lordofduct]

I've played with several different ones...

SVN - I use SVN at home for my own personal stuff. It's lightweight enough yet still robust to handle what I need from it. There's also tons of opensource tools, clients, and other applications I can use with it that work on all the operating systems I play in.

CVS - limited experience, a place I used to work for used it. Had tons of problems with people accidently branching when they shouldn't have, and not knowing how to merge back in... but that was most likely a user problem, not a software problem.

Git - I used clients to access people source that was stored in git. It has really cool features, but a good deal of it just seems like to much for me and my small projects. When you get on huge open-source projects git makes complete sense! Just look at its distributed development model, it sounds like an amazing idea in theory. But unless you have several unique dev-teams branching off the same source and then merging their section in later. It really doesn't make sense.

SourceGear - some proprietary system that I use now for a job. It seems compitent and all... pretty much on par with SVN and CVS, I'm not sure what the technology is based on or has its roots in. It was designed as a 'successor' to SourceSafe I know that.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 05 October 2010 - 06:57 AM

[JackOfAllTrades]

I hate VSS. It's just not what I'm used to.

Use CVS and SVN (it's what I moved the VSS stuff to as soon as I could) at work. Both work just fine and dandy.

Have used Perforce before, and that was pretty nice as well, but a bit of a different paradigm from CVS/SVN.

Worked for a guy who was a Git worshiper, but it's so different from other SCCS paradigms to me it was hard for me to pick it up. I should re-evaluate at some point for personal stuff.

[anonymouscodder]

What about mercurial? Never really used, but looks nice.

[Brewer]

What exactly is SourceSafe?

[eclipsed4utoo]

Jambr, on 05 October 2010 - 10:43 AM, said:

What exactly is SourceSafe?

http://msdn.microsof...y/aa302175.aspx

[Brewer]

Wow, that's pretty cool. Does it work well for individual development? Also, it seems people are moving away from Microsoft.

[eclipsed4utoo]

Jambr, on 05 October 2010 - 10:52 AM, said:

Wow, that's pretty cool. Does it work well for individual development? Also, it seems people are moving away from Microsoft.

I am not sure what you mean by "moving away from Microsoft". Seems that there are a great number of people would believe that SourceSafe is an inferior product to the other version control products.

SourceSafe has worked well for us. However, because of recent changes to how Microsoft does licensing for partners, I believe that we aren't going to have the licenses that we need. Therefore, we are looking at other alternatives to SourceSafe.

[Brewer]

I mean I have noticed a lot more people that have moved to Linux or Macs, especially a lot of college students. People are also starting to give up Microsoft products like Microsoft Office for stuff like Open Office that does exactly the same thing and is free. My point: Microsoft charges too much for products that aren't as good as their competitors.

[baavgai]

I've tried a few over the years. Microsoft SourceSafe caused me pain when I looked at it early on and I never bothered again.

I've played Git, it's neat. I actually think Canonical's Bazaar has promise. At least they are reasonable about including Windows in their basic offering.

Currently, each developer get's their own project or module of it. The source tree has a version number and the developer just makes another folder with the next revision. It's primitive, I know, but it meets our needs.

[eclipsed4utoo]

Jambr, on 05 October 2010 - 11:08 AM, said:

I mean I have noticed a lot more people that have moved to Linux or Macs, especially a lot of college students. People are also starting to give up Microsoft products like Microsoft Office for stuff like Open Office that does exactly the same thing and is free. My point: Microsoft charges too much for products that aren't as good as their competitors.

That discussion is for another topic.

[Brewer]

I know, it was just a side note since you mentioned that you are moving away from a Microsoft product.

[eclipsed4utoo]

Jambr, on 05 October 2010 - 11:48 AM, said:

I know, it was just a side note since you mentioned that you are moving away from a Microsoft product.

I think it's more of a licensing issue rather than it's a crappy product. We used to be a Gold Partner with Microsoft. Microsoft changed it's partner program, so we won't be able to be a Gold Partner anymore, which means we won't get as many free licenses.

So from a cost standpoint, I think that's why we are looking at other options.

[Brewer]

eclipsed4utoo, on 05 October 2010 - 09:59 AM, said:

I think it's more of a licensing issue rather than it's a crappy product. We used to be a Gold Partner with Microsoft. Microsoft changed it's partner program, so we won't be able to be a Gold Partner anymore, which means we won't get as many free licenses.

So from a cost standpoint, I think that's why we are looking at other options.

That makes sense. I think the only reason professionals use Adobe Photoshop is because their companies can afford to pay for the licenses. I don't personally know anyone who owns a legal version of Photoshop. Even their "student version" is $500.