Hi all,
This is a placeholder to version control system overview.
What i want to do here is :
1) List all tools used in the industry.(please provide a link to the tool discussed).
2) Gather ppl opinion on each tool.(Please back up your opinion with facts i.e provide advantages and disadvantages)
Cross Links: What is your bug/task tracking tool (FAQ)
Please put each tool in separate answer and please make it community owned wiki to give an option to add/edit to as many ppl as possible.
Rational ClearCase with UCM
(useful because we have many different projects which must be deployed in a single production platform, so UCM helps us to keep track of all the configurationS and ensure the same configuration list has been used by all involved project)
Otherwise, subversion for smaller stand-alone project.
Git is the way to go. It beats anything else speed-wise and it's dead simple to use. Not to mention the easiest branching and merging I've ever seen.
There are Windows versions available as well, such as MSysGit.
It has two great GUI tools that one should use:
Gitk can also be used to cherry-pick the changes from other people that you want to pull into your repository, and git-gui can be used to cherry-pick your own changes that you wish to commit for others to see.
Advantages:
1. Free
2. Stable
3. Widely used
4. Supported on many platforms
Disadvantages:
Feel free to add more
For commercial CM tool reviews checkout this: http://www.cmcrossroads.com/content/blogcategory/38/228/
I use Subversion with Eclipse integration from Subversive.
Tools to avoid :
CVS since SVN is better on all regards
SourceSafe since it can corrupts files
I recently used SourceAnywhere Hosted, it suited my needs well. Some benefits are:
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/SourceAnywhere-Hosting-Version-Control-Source-Control.aspx
git rebaseWe also use Subversion with Tortoise SVN but in my oppinion its a bit a pain in the neck. I don't know if it is the Tortoise program, Subversion itself or even Windows. However, everytime I do a modification check, there is a terrible hard drive activity. I think its related to the everytime recursive scan of the .svn subdirectories that makes it this expensive.
Personally I would stick with git, too. It doesn't have those subdirectories and maintains all code tree information in one central place. I also like the distribution feature of git, so I don't have to bother with central branches that no one ever is going to need.
There are two nice Google TechTalks which introduce git a bit more and show it's advantages over other SCM systems. I think they both give a good overview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dhZ9BXQgc4 with Randal Schwartz
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 with Linus Torvalds
Advantages:
Disadvantage:
RCS
RCS was pretty much superceded by CVS and later Subversion.
It relied on locking, which most people are glad to see the back of.
RCS could be compiled with strict locking or without it; it did not absolutely rely on locking versions.
For simple version control, RCS is a workable product. It has its deficiencies - in modern terms, the lack of changesets is one problem (changes are particular to a single file). But it was a solid VCS - as was SCCS in its day. And there are definitely people still using RCS - I do, for one. Granted, I'm looking to move to a DVCS; at the moment, though, RCS is my (private) VCS, and it works well for me.
Hi, our setup for all kind of project sizes
The main advantages from our point of view:
Greetings Johannes
CVSNT 2.5.04 and WinCvs 2.1.1 plus several custom Python/Tk macros
Does everything we need and does it well.
I use perforce at work, which is really user-friendly, has a dead-simple GUI, supports branching and merging, does atomic commits of changelists as the basis submission mechanism, although there's revision-history available per file also.
For open-source work, I'm also using SVN (via TortoiseSVN on Windows) and git (which seems great, but I do miss a good GUI for this).
for voting? how is this supposed to help anyone? votes without qualitative information? I think the posts with a case plus advantages and disadvantages are much more usefull. voting doesn't provide statistically usefull or valid information in this context, quantitative analyses do! why? because cases (situations) are different and voting does not differentiate for that and is therefore substantially flawed. keep on posting your cases and your evaluations. that helps a lot!
SVN with Tortoise beats anything on Windows when it comes to ease of use.
Here's a balanced comparison between git and mercurial, that concludes that git is conceptually better (if only a little); I quote :
Although mercurial may still feel nicer today, the change feels inevitable
Please refrain from flaming wars on this, it's just one mans' opinion. Please add your own if you feel like this doesn't represent the whole picture yet.
I use CVS at work for legacy repositories and git for personal projects
I recommended Vault from SourceGear
The repository is stored on a sqlserver database. Great tool, free license for single user.
Server side:
Client side:
PVCS - It has a ncie web client and cool Java standalone client. It has almost the same speed as subversion, but uses the opposite source control methodology. Every developer has to lock the latest file revision of a certain branch when editing. This is more secure, compared to the subversion, which allows free editing a revision and then the system tries to merge and resolve conflicts.
At work, we all use Visual Studio and some of us use Visual Source Safe 2005 and others Subversion Server on Windows. For my home projects, I use only TortoiseSVN with a file repository.
Im my experience, those who uses Source Safe just want to "backup" their code. In fact, they rarely add comments to their commits. That's why they prefer Source Safe for its better integration with Visual Studio: they have virtually nothing to do.
In teams where we use Subversion with TortoiseSVN, it's mandatory to comment on each commit. This way we can view the logs to know what was done and how.
Anything But SourceSafe, courtesy of some guy called Jeff Atwood
Visual SourceSafe
Recommendations: Avoid. Visual SourceSafe (VSS) has a really difficult time keeping track of changes, especially when files get renamed. Also, VSS completely lacks the support of atomic check-ins. We continue to use it as it is extremely easy to check code into it, and there is a large amount of static friction keeping it in place.
We use Subversion via Netbeans and Eclipse built-in support (IDE selection depends on developer's preference). We have Fogbugz matching the check-ins to the original cases and CruiseControl kicking off the integration build after every check-in.
One of the nice benefits of our setup is that the developer is pretty free to choose their development environment: Linux / Windows, Netbeans / Eclipse, etc.
Advantages:
1. Integrates easily with Visual Studio
2. Free with MSDN license for small teams( 5 or less)
Disadvantages
1. Not free for large teams (2010 will be free for MSDN subscribers)
2. Centralized System
Used several:
VSS - Too unreliable to use. Avoid.
CVS with WinCVS client - Horrible to setup and use. WinCVS is diabolical and buggy - it can merge code and throw away the stuff you've just written. Doesn't deal with file/directory renames or deletions well. Avoid.
StarTeam - Expensive and with a confusing client UI
ionForge - Free for one user. Easy to setup and use, only backing up its zillions of repository files was a bit of an issue
Subversion - Decent free system. TortoiseSVN is a poor client - the integration with Windows Explorer means you have no view of the repository (it is often confusing which one you're using at a given point, ditto with branches) or history without lots of menu clicking. Subclipse client for Eclipse is nice though.
use both svn and git, i just started using git to manage multiple branches and merging them better then push the changes back to svn.
On the Mac, I use Cornerstone as my preferred svn GUI. I admit I prefer the log view of Versions but Cornerstone does some nice things picking up changed files and especially providing a rapid filtered look through my repository - I find myself using it just to access files that I know are in a huge directory structure.
Having an auto-add of added files and the converse, an easy way to ignore, is very important on the Mac where bundles are used to provide what appears to the Finder as a monolithic file but is really just a folder with attributes. You end up with a lot of minor file additions rather than changes within files.
SCCS - The first one I used. It doesn't pretend to be anything but a source code control system and, with proper scripting, it can be used for versions, subversions and platforms.
It's harder to use than SourceSafe, but it's more secure.
For projects that I'm running, I use SVN. For most of my projects, I'm using Visual Studio 2008, so the primary SVN client that I insist everyone use is Ahnk SVN. This seems rock solid and the integration with VS is pretty well done. It's important to have the version control system integrated into the IDE, because the most common SNAFU I run across in projects is people adding modules to the project but forgetting to add them to the repository (this is the equivalent of the check out and go home scenario from the dark ages of SourceSafe). With an integrated SVN client this doesn't happen.
I always install Tortoise in addition to Ahnk, since not all project related assets wind up in a VS solution. In my opinion Tortoise is an extremely well done implementation, and I like the shell extension UI, but it can't make up for the benefits of VS integration, so I use it as a backup.
SVN rocks because:
Mercurial + Mercurial Queues + hgsvn + hg-git
Visual Source Safe
Advantages:
Disadvantages: