Subversion for SourceSafe users

Question

I have to do some migration training for developers tomorrow who have only ever used VSS. It's been a long time since I used VSS in any capacity and I'm concerned I'll miss a lot of obvious stuff. What I want is a list of things you would want to know if you were going to move to VSS. What would you mention if you were tasked with training someone as a new user of SVN?

Answer 1

One of the biggest differences is that between the copy-modify-merge model used by Subversion and the lock-modify-unlock model used in Visual SourceSafe.

The Subverson book has a pretty decent overview of the comparison, with some appraisal of each.

Answer 2

Last time I saw VSS it was shipped with VC6.0 so I don't know how it looks like today but for me shock was about that I used to have my local copy of sources and to modify anything I had to check it out first. In SVN you have all sources checked out all the time or you have no sources at all. I think it's worth to mention.

Answer 3

The most critical thing is that many VSSers are used to checking out a file and whilst editing it it remains locked and usually VSS integration keeps the file read-only. Clearly this differs with the SVN just edit, commit and may be merge approach.

VSSer will not be familiar with terms such as branch and trunk, such features are handled poorly by VSS.

SVN doesn't do linked files which is a feature many VSSers may be used to. That is where at the VSS level multiple "project" (read folder) may contain the same file. Checking out the file from one of these projects checks it out from all and checking it in updates all. If this is in use an alternative needs to be found

SVN doesn't natively do shadow folders. That is a folder which contains the current state of a project as if someone had just performed a Get Latest Version. When a check-in is performed the shadow folder(s) is also updated.

Answer 4

Subversion for VSS Users is a good comparison what differs in SVN over VSS