VSS projects, do they have to be set as 'readonly' or can I make the files writetable?

Question

In my working folder of a VSS project, is it alright if I make all the files/folders writable? i.e. not readonly?

Answer 1

It is ok, but why should you?

The read only state is a safeguard so you can't change code that is not locked. Avoiding possible merge troubles in the near future.

Edit: Ok in the comment you said that the build failed because the file was not writable. If so, then it is very strange. Especially if the error message said something about not able to access the file. It was probably still locked by another process and changing the readonly flag removed the lock (or it just needed the delay). But as far as I know, compilers do work excelent with read only source files.

Possible problems:

• Files on network drives. If the network is slow, the compiler can have trouble accessing the file.
• File still open in (an other) editor. Normally this shouldn't be a problem, but you may never know.
• Some code files are generated during the build. In this case they don't belong in the version system, their source (if any) does.