C# source control that allows me to have multiple branches of code for various "editions"

Question

Can someone recommend a source control product that does all of the following:

1. Seamless integration into VS 2008 Pro
2. Will allow me to create different "editions" of a program (like "express" and "pro") - maybe with branching?
3. Will allow me to track changes for specific client requests. Say I have four clients, 2 on express, 2 on pro. I would be able to create specific, customized changes for all clients while still maintaining a singular codebase.

I'm not sure if something like VisualSVN can handle this, but there must be a product out there.

Answer 1

Virtually every source control will satisfy the #2 and #3 requirement with branches.

For #1 it's more tricky. If you really want a Seamless integration (capital S) then Team Foundation Server is your only choice. (It's very expensive)

Otherwise virtually all the major source control systems will have some sort of VS plugin, but the plugin usually doesn't work very well.

The two most popular free source control systems are:

• Subversion
• git

Answer 2

From experience you only need integration with Visual Studio if you need to check out the file before editing it (a-la SourceSafe) and the file is read-only until then.

Having used SourceSafe I went on to using SVN and absolutely never looked back. Then I switched to git and again never looked back on SVN or Sourcesafe.

I can't comment on Team Foundation source control or Mercurial, I've never used those. At this stage I would recommend git over SVN as it's more suited to working with a single source tree that has minor changes between lots of branches. You can do the same thing with SVN but found the process of switching the working copy to another process painful.

Answer 3

The best way to create different additions of your software using the same code in all of the different versions it to use pre-processor directives to conditionally compile your software based of flags that you set.

For information on conditional compilation please see the following links:

.NET: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9ae6e432%28VS.71%29.aspx

Java: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/schaefa/archive/2005/01/how_to_do_condi_1.html

C++: http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Cplusplus/C-plus-plus-Preprocessor-The-Code-in-the-Middle/3/

I hope this answers your question I use this alot when developing different version of applications for different platforms.

An example of this is an application that I developed in c# for both a server and mobile device implementation. Each had different ways of calling functions in .NET libraries but the logic was the same so I used preprocessor conditional compilation to compile to correct code for each platform but leave the logic intact.

Answer 4

Team Foundation Server provides the best seamless integration to VS 2008, but of course its not free (i agree that its very expensive)

have you tried using AnkhSVN? its got a pretty good integration for VS 2008 and SVN. so far it gives me the VS-SVN integration that I need, so you might want to check it and see if it fits your needs.

you can use TortoiseSVN, but I suggest installing CollabNet's SVN server, because AnkhSVN integrates seamlessly with it, plus you dont have to worry about major installations

Answer 5

It's only three months until VS 2010 is in final release (March 22, 2010). For MSDN subscribers, TFS will be integrated into Visual Studio (all levels except Express). MSDN subscriptions that include Visual Studio (any level) will include TFS with a one-seat license. TFS 2010 will run on Vista or Windows 7. SharePoint is no longer required, but you still need it if you want 100% of TFS features, like reporting.

It's all available now in beta; I'm running TFS on my laptop.