Source Control Tutorials for Implementing them on C#, Java Developments.

Question

Hi,

As a one-man-company taking custom-development jobs (a.k.a. Gun For Hire), the later more complex than the earlier, I'm finding myself in the situation I do really NEED to improve my practices in order to keep the pace and be able to bring more people to work on taks of completing prototypes, making tests, etc.

My question is: Where do I start with source control tools? What tool do you recommend me? Where do you (as a personal opinnion) think is the best tutorial to getting started?

For example, I know that Open Source Projects use SVN, but really, I can't make myself one full day to sit and learn how it works. I really need that this-is-the-tutorial-you-need-to-start.

By The Way, I'm working mostly on C# (VS 2005) projects, and a few Java projects.

HJ42.

ps: Please Don't be Mean with me, those who are full into the Best Practices Stream. All I want to do is find that set of Practices to finally build a real development team. In my country those are very scarce. We have lots of PM's who doesn't know a thing about software and Developers who doesn't know a thing about Project Management.

Answer 1

For example, I know that Open Source Projects use SVN, but really, I can't make myself one full day to sit and learn how it works. I really need that this-is-the-tutorial-you-need-to-start.

So, you want to learn how to use source control, but you don't actually want to "learn" it? A basic tutorial will get you started, yes, but you probably won't actually understand enough to make source control effective. I hate to sound harsh, but you can't just be spoon-fed something so important as this.

Anyway, to answer your question, this article should be helpful. It provides further links to resources about learning how to use source control:

Coding Horror: Source Control: Anything but SourceSafe

Beyond that, however, I suggest taking the time to really evaluate how source control will benefit you the most and then try implementing it in some test environments to see how well it works.

Answer 2

SVN isn't tricky. Since it sounds like you're windows based (C#), perhaps pick up something like VisualSVN Server (free) and Tortoise SVN client (free). You can literally get it all going in under half an hour. Since you are using a variety of tools, it sounds like IDE integration might not be the most important thing (tortoise is an explorer extension).

Learning the best way to organise your projects is tricker... and comes with time. But if you are mainly using the basic "checkout, edit, commit" (+ backup) approach it should be simple to get started.

And TEST YOUR BACKUPS. If you haven't tested them, they don't exist.

There are "changes afoot" for TFS that might make that a viable option for the lone developer next year (install the server on desktop OS, for example) - but it it a much more complex product, the "new" pricing model isn't yet announced, and it won't be aimed squarely at your Java code. But if you have a suitable level of MSDN subscription it might be an option worth looking at next year. The current TFS would probably be overkill.

Answer 3

The Pragmatic Starter Kit is a useful resource for this kind of thing, and includes a book on Subversion which starts from the real "what is version control?" basics and includes useful guidance on sensible VC practices as well as concrete instructions on implementation.

Answer 4

This is it, Fast and pretty comprehensive. I got there via codinghorror:

http://www.ericsink.com/scm/source%5Fcontrol.html

Thanks DavidBrown!, and of course, Thanks Mr Atwood!

Answer 5

Version Control with Subversion is also pretty good. It starts with the concepts of version control and then describes how to use subversion.