Author Topic: source control systems: what's the best? (Read 51,394 times)

urlwolf · « **on:** January 07, 2008, 06:39 PM »

I have to pick one from this list:
Subversion, CVS, perforce, VSS

I have used only cvs in the past a few years ago, so I have no idea what the state of the art is.
Initially it's for a project with 2 progammers only.

It will be integrated with fogbugz.com.

What should one look at when picking one? For me, having a good vim plugin to commit/take out things is important, but I'm sure there are many factors I'm oblivious to.

Here are some reviews from the perfoce (paid) site:
http://www.perforce.com/perforce/reviews.html

Thoughts?

tinjaw · « **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2008, 06:56 PM »

Subversion

urlwolf · « **Reply #2 on:** January 07, 2008, 06:58 PM »

Here's a nice thread comparing cvs / subversion:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139046&cid=11635958

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #3 on:** January 07, 2008, 07:03 PM »

It appears to me that the development community is developing a pretty strong following behind Subversion.

On the flip side, I can't recommend strongly enough against VSS. I've had my archive corrupted, and have heard countless similar stories. The same architecture (file-system-based rather than real client-server) that leads to this corruption also makes it very suboptimal over remote connections.

We currently use Microsoft's newer Team Foundation Server at work, which seems to do a fine job but is rather expensive. For my own adventures at home I'm using SourceGear Vault because a single-developer license is free.

urlwolf · « **Reply #4 on:** January 07, 2008, 07:10 PM »

Is perforce's only advantage speed?

tinjaw · « **Reply #5 on:** January 07, 2008, 07:19 PM »

Good /. comment.

Subversion has never failed me in the three years I have been using it. I see you want to use Spolsky's stuff, but I use mantis and they are easily integrated. However, svn's latest release has the hooks in it to clamp on to just about any of them. I also like trac, and again, easy interop out of the box. TortoiseSVN rocks, but Tortoise did/does CVS just as well.

Not that I have written all that it occurs to me that one of the main reasons I like svn so much is that it is the "backend" for alot of great "frontends". But with those same tools CVS would be just fine. I just sort of think of svn as The "New" CVS.

housetier · « **Reply #6 on:** January 07, 2008, 08:02 PM »

There is also mercurial, a distributed revision control system. It might seem strange, but none of my friends have regretted using it so far.

tinjaw · « **Reply #7 on:** January 07, 2008, 08:23 PM »

Quote from: housetier on January 07, 2008, 08:02 PM

but none of my friends have regretted using it so far.

Hg? They must not touch it very often then.

bscott · « **Reply #8 on:** January 07, 2008, 10:47 PM »

My vote goes to Subversion with TortoiseSVN.

You could take a look at VisualSVN (http://www.visualsvn.com/) if you are using Visual Studio.

f0dder · « **Reply #9 on:** January 08, 2008, 12:47 AM »

Forget about VSS (Visual SourceSafe), too many people have had corruption issues, and afaik Microsoft doesn't even use it themselves.

Forget about CVS, it's old and outdated.

I have no experienec with Perforce, so can't speak about that, but I haven't really heard anything negative about it.

Personally I use subversion, which hasn't let me down, has been around long enough that it's stable & mature enough, and has decent performance (even across the internet). RE VisualSVN: Ankh also offers VS SVN integration, and is free.

I'm interested in BZR, but it's still too young for me to touch it.

tinjaw · « **Reply #10 on:** January 08, 2008, 01:02 AM »

Quote from: f0dder on January 08, 2008, 12:47 AM

I'm interested in BZR, but it's still too young for me to touch it.

Which reminds me, when I need distributed svn I use svk. Works seamlessly.

urlwolf · « **Reply #11 on:** January 08, 2008, 03:41 AM »

I just tested Mercurial.
It rocks.

This is a new paradigm.
It makes you feel like coding and experimenting a lot.

Note:
There's a 'batteries included' package that lets you play with it in no time.

Tutorials are easy. However, they don't explain how to turn a project into a repo. Just Do
Hg init
Hg addremove
Hg commit

Chaim, what makes you feel you need classical/distributed svn? I think the distributed paradigm just displaced the old, linear one?

Note: Mercurial doesn't integrate with fogbugz. Pity.

tinjaw · « **Reply #12 on:** January 08, 2008, 04:48 AM »

Quote from: urlwolf on January 08, 2008, 03:41 AM

Chaim, what makes you feel you need classical/distributed svn? I think the distributed paradigm just displaced the old, linear one?

Here is just one realworld example. I have a server on the Internet that is my subversion rep. I have a laptop. I use svk to mirror the repo on my local laptop. I then use svn on this local distributed mirror when no on the Internet. When I rejoin I then push my changes up. This allows me to have local svn AND remote svn and it is all synched.

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** January 08, 2008, 05:17 AM »

tortoise is a quality product, but it was a bit too "invasive" for me with its shell extensions.
i use RapidSVN (free): http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/

i should say i am still suspicious of version control systems.. i never completely trust my source directory to them, i always have a backup.

furthermore my experience is that svn is a huge improvement from cvs in terms of modifying repositories (deleting the odd file, etc), but it can still freak out if you try to do major restructuring. so try to get your directory structure basically in place before you start your repository is my advice.

f0dder · « **Reply #14 on:** January 08, 2008, 01:27 PM »

Quote from: mouser on January 08, 2008, 05:17 AM

tortoise is a quality product, but it was a bit too "invasive" for me with its shell extensions.
i use RapidSVN (free): http://rapidsvn.tigris.org/

If RapidSVN only had as nice an UI as Tortoise, and (especially important to me), as nice a diff viewer, repo-viwer, etc...

As for backups, mouser, you should install http://www.rsnapshot.org/ on your server.

Eóin · « **Reply #15 on:** January 08, 2008, 01:33 PM »

For people interested in RaipdSVN I'd recommend checking out the nightly builds. I've found them to be much better over the last stable version, even in terms of stability ironicially

urlwolf · « **Reply #16 on:** January 08, 2008, 01:44 PM »

@mouser: great advice.
@fodder: this agrees with you:
http://better-scm.berlios.de/to-avoid/

And here's a very good comparison:
http://better-scm.berlios.de/comparison/comparison.html

Gothi[c] · « **Reply #17 on:** January 08, 2008, 01:55 PM »

Having tried all three: vss, cvs, and svn, I would say svn is by far the best source control system. I have however not tried anything else.

My experience with tortoise and rapidsvn is that these apps sometimes try to complicate rather simple operations. I've grown actually quite fond of the svn command-line client, which seems to let me do things a lot easier/faster. Maybe that's because I never had enough patience with the GUI and because I'm not that much of a mouse-freak, or maybe not

I would also like to agree with mouser on the shell invasiveness comment. If you're going to make a GUI for svn, it would make much more sense to either integrate it in an IDE or have a centralized app for it. You don't need source control support for every folder on your operating system.

f0dder · « **Reply #18 on:** January 08, 2008, 02:02 PM »

I don't really mind doing "svn update" or "svn commit" or "svn add" et cetera from a command shell, but where TortoiseSVN comes in super-handy is in it's repo-browser, which is easier to navigate around than a lot of "svn ls <remote-uri>".

Also, when doing commits, I use the TortoiseSVN interface for checking the diffs of modified files, when writing the entry changelog. Easier than manually remembering & keeping track of all changes. Works very well. Oh, and the auto-completion in the changelog entry field is also very nice.

Gothi[c] · « **Reply #19 on:** January 08, 2008, 02:08 PM »

Quote

And here's a very good comparison:
http://better-scm.berlios...omparison/comparison.html

That's actually quite a comprehensive list of source control systems. Thanks for that link

Perhaps a good source of inspiration to try something new.

jtbworld · « **Reply #20 on:** January 12, 2008, 07:05 PM »

Another option is Dynamsoft SourceAnywhere Hosted that has work pretty good in a few projects I've used it.
http://jtbworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/review-of-dynamsoft-software-version.html
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/SAWFamily_Overview.aspx

Renegade · « **Reply #21 on:** January 14, 2008, 03:50 AM »

Great Visual Source Safe resource here! It's a MUST read before you decide on ANYTHING!

Catherine Sea · « **Reply #22 on:** January 14, 2008, 09:27 AM »

Hi,

SourceAnywhere Standalone is also a good one. It is an SQL-based version control application that provides all of the key features of VSS, plus much more. SourceAnywhere Standalone comes with GUI client, command client, SDK, Eclipse plug-in, Visual Studio 6/2003/2005/2008 integration, Dreamweaver/Flash integration, cross-platform client. All are in one product. Besides that, SourceAnywhere Standalone offers a unique feature, Web Deployment through FTP.

Here is the home page of SourceAnywhere Standalone:
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/SAWstandalone_Overview.aspx

The SaaS Edition - SourceAnywhere Hosted is also available.
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/SAWhosted_Overview.aspx

You can take a look.

Thanks.

-----------------
Catherine Sea
http://www.dynamsoft.com

f0dder · « **Reply #23 on:** January 14, 2008, 12:05 PM »

Catherine: if you're in any way associated with SourceAnywhere, please state it directly.

Gothi[c] · « **Reply #24 on:** January 15, 2008, 03:27 AM »

Quote

SourceAnywhere Standalone is also a good one.

It looks like a pretty solid product. I like the fact that it seems to be available for many platforms/OS'es. Can you tell us anything on how it compares to, say svn. How well is it's branching support etc?