Which is a better source control with NetBeans (Ruby on Rails), VSS or Subversion?

Question

Which is better source control with NetBeans (Ruby on Rails), VSS or subversion?

I want to use source control, so I want to know which is better for NetBeans (RoR). Visual Source safe or Subversion?

Answer 1

Absolutely Subversion.

I'd explain why, but Jeff Atwood has done a great job already and the blog entry links to other sites with great information.

Avoid VSS like the plague. You are far better off with SVN or Git.

Answer 2

The Subversion Netbeans module is provided as part of the platform and is more likely to be supported than the VSS one.

Answer 3

I can give you the recommendation to use Subversion if possible. Even according to Microsoft, SourceSafe is a rather limited version control system. It lacks quite essential features such as transactional commits/revisions, branching and merge support, an easily corrupted database etc.

Alan de Smet has put up a rather long list here:

Visual SourceSafe: Microsoft's Source Destruction System

If you for any reason have to live with VSS make sure that you install all service packs and updates as there are a number of highly critical issues in the RTM version (e.g. this update, updates don't come automatically with Windows update).

Answer 4

Anything but SourceSafe. In all seriousness though, Java-based IDEs such as Netbeans, Eclipse and IDEA usually have the best support for Subversion. It's free, and it's fast, and it's solid.

Answer 5

Be careful using any source control within Netbeans.

You need to be very cautious about ensuring that you stick to a version of Subversion that your version of Netbeans supports. Assuming you are using windows you will probably also install tortoise and it constantly checks for tortoise & SVN updates which you may foolishly opt to do and then suddenly your netbeans subversion integration is screwed up.

If you search for netbeans subversion plugin a lot of the top entries include the words "upgrade" and "broke".

My advice would be to avoid the IDE integration altogether. You reduce the number of things that can break and interfere with your work. If you learn the command line options you become platform/ide independent.

I gave up on SVN in Netbeans a while ago after getting frustrated with the constant fiddling with the plugin, netbean versions, and svn versions.

Answer 6

I have used subversion with Netbeans before and it is very effective - subversion allows you to keep your source organised in a nice, simple folder structure whilst being almost universally supported. Besides all of the VSS haters out there, SVN is almost certainly the best "traditional" versioning system out there.

Answer 7

I don't think you should let an IDE to decide for you which Source ( Control program to use. If anything, it should be the other way around, but best if the decision to choose each (IDE and source control) are decided by its own merits. In case the chosen IDE does not have tight integration with the source control, it's not the end of the world or a show stopper. In other words, you can still be very productive if they're not integrated.