Visual SourceSafe: Architecture/Management

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+1 Q:

Visual SourceSafe: Architecture/Management

I was looking for information on how other people with larger teams manage SourceSafe currently. I was looking for recommendations and advice for a new project I was setting up that will allow for a few key things

Scalability
Manage multiple overlapping releases
Geared more around .NET however allows for legacy applications (VB, ASP and VBS)

I am really looking for any lessons learned from other teams. I come from a StarTeam background and we used view labels and release labels to manage multiple overlapping projects. View labels geared more towards compiled code and SQL and the revision labels were used for VB/ASP projects.

Thank you for any advice and sharing your experience and frustrations with other companies you might have worked with in the past.

+8 A:

My advice would be this:

Don't use SourceSafe at all, period.

There's many source-code versioning systems that are far superior, and freely available, too (e.g. Subversion, or Git) -- there are even add-ins for Visual Studio integration for some of them.

We are using SourceSafe 2005 at work, and managing even small projects is very frustrating.

You might want to read the article Microsoft's source destruction system by Alan de Smet, if you haven't already. Even after a brief time working with SourceSafe, you will have come across many of the problems mentioned there.

Sorry for not being able to give more constructive advice.

stakx 2010-04-13 20:39:02

And without cluttering the page with more replies of the same, I'm going to SECOND and THIRD everything this guy just said. We're looking to migrate to TFS now that 2010 is out. I suggest you do the same. Otherwise, I would migrate to SVN (being similar in fit and shape to VSS, but not really) or if you're really looking for scalability of course there's GIT and HG. Like I said, we're looking to migrate to TFS. ;)

drachenstern 2010-04-13 20:46:46

+1 A:

Microsoft finally telling everybody to let go of Sourcesafe. See the the start of this (marketing talk) TFS2010 video on channel 9.

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/VS2010Launch/Clemri-Steyn-Team-Foundation-Server-for-Everyone/

Clemri Steyn: Team Foundation Server for Everyone

Are you still using Visual SourceSafe? Is your source code in Subversion? Have you hobbled together a set of open source tools that just “get the job done”? Team Foundation Server 2010 is the best next-step from Visual SourceSafe and other version control systems.

So check out if TFS 2010 is an option.

Davy Landman 2010-04-13 21:02:32

Its probably the thing most VSS shops will upgrade to - even if its not that good... http://martinfowler.com/bliki/VcsSurvey.html

gbjbaanb 2010-04-13 21:14:08

While I'm a fan of using git, you do have to check the article, it's a limited survey. Not especially a random selection of developers.But I agree, TFS has it's problems, but coming from Source"safe" it certainly is a step forward, also for the included ALM features which give managers/team leaders direct insight in the progress.

Davy Landman 2010-04-13 21:25:00

ansaurus

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