Dirk wrote:
Hi Toby,
But I also mentioned it earlier. VSS isn't that bad. It does the job
it was designed for, easy version control. As long as you do use the
advanced commands, you won't have any problems.
Hmm, I think I'd have to disagree with you on that one! My biggest
problem with VSS is that Microsoft *knows* that there are serious
data-loss bugs in it.
You got me wrong on this. I totally agree with all your comments on
the known problems of VSS. I should have written my statement in the
past. There where times, when VSS wasn't that bad, because:
* subversion didn't existed
* CVS wasn't easy to use under Windows
* subversion first lacked the very important feature "exclusive
locking" (very important if binary files are involved)
* tortoise SVN didn't existed
* still up to day, there is no SCCS provider for subversion
Esp. the last point is very important on windows if you have to work
with non-technical people (sometimes also with technical people). You
can have the best tools available for a specific job. But if the
people using the tools do not understand why and how they should use
them, the tool is worthless. I took me at least one year to explain
version control to some people (technical and non technical). But
every time they need to change the computer, they complain why the
work from yesterday is lost. (because they forgot to commit the
change). They drive me crazy. No chance to explain them what and why
they have to do special steps. Even writing an operation procedure
wasn't enough.
Only the SCCS interface available for a few programs made things a
little better. Because they don't have to switch tools in order to
make their work persistent. And the fact that MS placed the SCCS API
under an NDA slammed the doors for better tools available on the
market. The interface must be so damn simple because of the limited
activities you can perform over that interface, that any programmer
would be ashamed if he places such an interface under a NDA.
Yes, you do make good points. I thought you were saying VSS is still
good enough if you just need it for a simple solution, but to me it
doesn't matter if it's simple if it means it's going to let me down when
I actually need it. So when people want to use VSS because it's so easy
I feel the need to share my 2 cents. :)
Good points about the lack of SCCS interface as well. However, while MS
will never release the SCCS interface without the NDA, VS 2005 is able
to use managed version control plugins without the NDA. You still have
to agree to their license to get the Visual Studio SDK, but I have read
that license and it *explicitly allows* code sharing and open-source
development. It looks like maybe the tiger can actually change his
stripes after all, which is why I cut Microsoft more slack these days
than I used to!
Of course the VS SDK is only for Visual Studio, so it's worthless for
the other SCCS enabled programs. But I did download the VS SDK, and was
able to create a simple managed "proof of concept" plugin which added
TSVN-like overlay icons to the items in Solution Explorer. Yet another
project which I wish I had enough time to commit to!...
I know that I will have a hard time convincing my team members that we
will not have the VSS style of working anymore: write protected files
and the program is asking for a checkout if you start to modify a
file. They don't care about the possible problems due to VSS and they
don't see the needs involved in project maintenance. It will change
their work cycle and they feel uncomfortable. So I haven't tested ankh
deeply.
Well good luck with that! I'm not sure if you've used SVN locking much;
if not then most of the functionality you describe is there in a way.
SVN/TSVN will set files to read-only if the svn:needs-lock property is
set and the user doesn't have a lock. So at least you can make sure they
know they're editing a versioned file. Of course there is also the DAV
autoversioning which works pretty well. Mount your SVN repo as a Windows
WebFolder and you can read and write files just like any network share,
but an implicit SVN commit is done each time it's saved. That is the
route we will probably go with for non-technical people who edit images,
PDFs, etc.
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