Code/Document Management for a very small company

Question

I work for a very small company (~5 employees, 2.5 coders). We have gotten away with no code or document management for several years, but it's starting to catch up with us as we grow a bit.

Any suggestions for a management system. Free is better, but cheap is acceptable. We just don't want to spend more time on installation/configuration than it is going to save us.

We use mostly VC++ 6, but we're branching into VC# 2008. Also, we need to keep track of mechanical drawings and circuit diagrams for several pieces of hardware, as well as user manuals for both hardware and software (but I don't really expect to find one tool that will do all of this, just hoping).

Answer 1

If you get a MSDN developer license, you can run TFS workgroup edition. That has source control and document management rolled all up in one package that's pretty easy to use and manage. That, in addition to an internal wiki, is what my company does.

Answer 2

Mantis is good for issue tracking. Subversion for source control. Both are free.

For documents, I do not know. Sounds like you would do fine with a network share.

Answer 3

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15024/tools-to-help-a-small-shop-score-higher-on-the-joel-test

Answer 4

Use Subversion. It's free and is the preferred source control system for the vast majority of open source projects.

SVN uses shallow copies, so when you have large files in a repository and you branch, a full file copy isn't done... just a pointer to the original. As for text files (code) only diffs are stored.

Use TortoiseSVN for windows explorer integration.

TFS is a pig, and you'd need to open visual studio to interact with source explorer. Stupid for a CAD engineer to have to need a license to TFS for that.

For document management, just use Windows Sharepoint Services that comes with Windows Server 2003 (or 2008).

Answer 5

You may want to look at Trac.

Answer 6

http://trac.edgewall.org/ - might be a bit hard to install but otherwise is very good if coupled with svn repository

Answer 7

I work for a similar sized company, and when I got here I was in the same place as you. I implemented SVN/Subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/ quite easily. If you use the svn protocol and use svnserve (can be setup as a windows service that auto starts on your server) it should take you 1.5-3 hours to setup depending on how much you want to read http://svnbook.red-bean.com/, see collabnet http://www.collab.net/downloads/subversion/ for the Windows package download

Using Windows, you can use Tortoise SVN which integrates into the windows shell. There is also a new release of Ankh SVN (2.0) http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/ that integrates into Visual Studio. Ankh is very nice (has pending changes window, kind of similar to Subclipse like functionality) but it is a new release and is somewhat buggy (we have experienced some memory probs and slowness). We currently use both Tortoise for initial checkouts or imports and Ankh for everything else and are pretty happy.

If you have any Mac users, there are a lot of options out there. We have a mac user here who uses Versions http://www.versionsapp.com/, though it sounds like they will charge for it once they get out of beta.

I would recommend SVN because it is widely used out there and I feel that is important with open source projects you are going to use daily for production purposes. Just to spell it out, everything (other than Versions) mentioned is free.

Answer 8

Subversion (SVN) is an excellent option for you. It's free, integrates nicely into Windows with TortoiseSVN, and is well-tolerated by users.

We are using it for source code, as well as for document management.

Answer 9

I also work for a small company and we mainly develop in .NET languages. We have decided to use Visual SourceSafe for source control, despite its questionable reputation, since it integrates nicely with Visual Studio. VSS works very well for us, and we have not experienced any serious problems with it. Also, we host a SharePoint server, which we use to store documents like coding standards, storyboards, and even our SCRUM log.

Answer 10

We use HostingPlayground. For $6 per month we get multiple Subversion repositories and an instance of Trac. Can't beat it. And since its a service its available immediately.

Answer 11

Perforce!

It's extremely fast compared to most other source control systems. It works great remotely. (SSH tunnels, in my case)

The VS plugins are quite decent... I haven't tried the Eclipse one that much yet.

If you can get by with two users with 5 workspaces each, then you can use it for free. (I do, currently)

If that won't work, then it does cost a bit... something like $800/user I believe. Sometime next year I'm probably paying that. (5 workspaces is tough when you work on several machines with VMs)

Still, I heard the slower-than-glacial ClearCase/ClearQuest system one client one mine is using was something like $10k per developer, so expensive where source control is concerned is a relative concept.

Don't skimp on the source control, man! Slow source control is a serious pain in the a$$.

Avoid SourceSafe-like systems that only version files... use systems that track tasks or change sets. It's very useful to see what all belongs together as a task. Tags are not an acceptable substitute.

Also, the journalling nature of Perforce makes backups and recovery a lot easier.

Answer 12

It seems the solution for your 'management' requirements will require at least a tool or set of tools in the following categories: (sorry about the links, not enough reputation to put proper ones in the reply)

• Source Code Management
• Trouble/Bug Ticketing
• Document Management

Definitely take a look at stackoverflow.com/questions/15024/tools-to-help-a-small-shop-score-higher-on-the-joel-test Tools to help a small shop score higher on the joel test referenced by stackoverflow.com/questions/84303/code-document-management-for-a-very-small-company/84363#84363 Kristopher

Each have various free/open source solutions, and likewise there are commercial solutions.

Source Code Management (SCM)

A significant trend(?) of source code management is evolving from centralised code management with something like TFS(?), cvs or subversion.tigris.org svn), to decentralised 'distributed' source code management with tools such as www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/ or git-scm.com/. Some of the tools either integrate into continutation

The above mentioned source code management tools all have nice ms windows integration tools, and some even have closer Visual Studio integration (e.g. TFS, ankhsvn.open.collab.net/ ANKH svn mentioned by Mario).

A simplistic generalistion would recommend git/mercurial when your coding involves a good portion of time away/off disconnected from your centralised source code repository (such as doing a lot of coding from home when your repository is not accessible through the Internet.)

Wikipedia has a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_management nice overview of the various issues related to source code management, and the benefits of various options.

If you haven't used scm before, just pick one or two of the tools that fits your groups requirements and test it. Of course, if you know someone near who has experience with a particular scm solution it may help with the team's learning curve to have that shared experience around.

My pick for your scenario: Subversion with ankhsvn.open.collab.net Ankh SVN for Visual Studio integration.

Trouble/Bug Ticketing

None of the tools available solve everything for everybody, each have their advantages and most require some compromise from a development teams existing modus operandi. Again, wikipedia is your friend with a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracker general summary and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_tracking_systems comparison of major tools.

Installation

The php based tools are the easiest (in my experience) to get up and running, and the perl tools more involved(?) Of course there's python one that's real easy to install, but then requires a better mind than mine to configure.

My pick for your scenario: trac.edgewall.org/ Trac

Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission is to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. Trac should impose as little as possible on a team's established development process and policies.

It provides an interface to Subversion (or other version control systems), an integrated Wiki and convenient reporting facilities.

Trac allows wiki markup in issue descriptions and commit messages, creating links and seamless references between bugs, tasks, changesets, files and wiki pages. A timeline shows all current and past project events in order, making the acquisition of an overview of the project and tracking progress very easy. The roadmap shows the road ahead, listing the upcoming milestones.

Drawings/Document Management

If you use Subversion with Trac then much of your document management may be solved with these tools. Otherwise another stackoverflow discussion topic: stackoverflow.com/questions/587481/developer-documentation-sharepoint-document-management-vs-screwturn-wiki Developer documentation sharepoint document management vs. screwturn wiki, for Windows centric environment, is a good read.

Answer 13

Use Git for source control, Basecamp/Pivotal Tracker/Unfuddled for coding workflow, and Sharepoint/Google Docs for document management.