My 2 bits worth. I have first hand experience with both systems and I definately prefer Perforce. I'm currently SCM person for a shop using CVS, and I constantly miss the speed and ease with which Perforce is able to return metadata information (without having to have a CVS information directory structure setup in one's working area). The typical developer may not need to use these kind of reporting features as often as an SCM person, but even their daily edit/submit use is faster than cvs can offer (especially when checking out numerable files). I'm not sure, but I think it's greater speed is due to the fact that the history files themselves contain only the 'main trunk' (a new directory structure is created for branching) and all metadata is stored in a database structure instead of in the history files themselves.
Perforce's branching/merging is superior as it has knowledge of when the last integration from one branch to another was performed and the next integration performed will proceed from that point. I've attempted to implement a wrapper script in cvs that tracks such information using tags, but it has never quite come together. Perforce has easy permissions handling so that the administrator can grant certain users write access to various areas and read to others. Yes, you can do this in cvs, but it's not nearly as intuitive. Both systems have their security holes and workarounds. I find most everything about Perforce intuitive and when my previous employer made the switch from RCS to Perforce, there was not a single developer out of about 30 that weren't exceptionally pleased with the ease of use and speed increase. The transition was relatively simple. I also prefer the atomic commits it offers. It's change number system is simple and, once your tools are converted to using this information (over checking out with tags), you'll appreciate this. Additionally, Perforce's support is exceptional. We always had responses to any question within a day and it was always by a technical person who understood the system perfectly. The rare time we did come across a bug, we were quickly supplied with a workaround and the fix would be in their next patch. All in all, I was very impressed with Perforce and it's my opinion that if your company's willing to pay for a revision control system initially, Perforce will easily pay for itself in the long run. At home, I use Perforce's unlicensed two-user two-client system to control my personal scripts, web page development, etc. -Lauree -----Original Message----- From: Bill Northlich [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 12:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: cvs vs. perforce Anyone care to offer reasons, other than "free", to use cvs over perforce? Or, the other way around? We are trying to make a decision. Thanks, /b _______________________________________________ Info-cvs mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-cvs _______________________________________________ Info-cvs mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-cvs
