Git Import from Surround SCM?

Question

My company has a large codebase in Surround SCM, which was migrated from SourceSafe a few years ago. We're looking to move to something more suited to our needs, but getting our history out of Surround is proving to be a challenge.

Googling for git importers, I found a good tutorial on custom importers. There also appears to be support for svn, perforce, and many others, but no Surround.

Would it be better to just take a snapshot and start a new git repo? Or is it worth writing a script to get 15+ years of code history?

Answer 1

In this kind of scenario, a script can be written, but not for getting all the history.

I would recommend only importing:

• the major labels (for anything older than a year, or whatever period you feel comfortable you won't need the examine in full because it is so old)
• all the labels (major and minors) for the last years.

However, migrating to Git requires also a work in order to identify modules or applications within your centralized Surround repository.
Trying to import all those data into one Git repository would be a mistake, unless it is one giant system which can not be developed in parts independently one from another (like the Linux kernel).

See:

• "What are the Git limits?" and
• "Transferring legacy code base from cvs to distributed repository (e.g. git or mercurial). Suggestions needed for initial repository design."