Version control

[Melissa Roberts]

How do you guys/gals keep track of changes in your software? How do you
revert to an older version if the new one gets out of control?

What I do is every version that works I create a new folder named VerName++
and save there so I can revert back to it if needed. There has to be a
better way to do this. Please advise.

 

[EventHelix.com]

You should use a version control system like:
- CVS
- Visual Source Safe
- Clearcase

You will be able to track all your code changes and will be able to
merge changes from one version branch to another.

Deepa

 

[Niels Dybdahl]

You should use a version control system like:

- CVS
- Visual Source Safe
- Clearcase

You will be able to track all your code changes and will be able to
merge changes from one version branch to another.

And:
- CVS is originally born with a command line interface, but has some nice
GUIs too and can be integrated in most Java IDEs. It has the simplest
structure of the database/repository of these three. CVS is free of charge.
- Visual Source Safe is the easiest of these three to learn. It can
integrate into MSVC. It supports shared files.
- ClearCase is the most difficult of these three to learn. It can also
integrate into MSVC. It does support replicated servers and other advanced
features.

Niels Dybdahl

 

[Rolf Magnus]

And:
- CVS is originally born with a command line interface, but has some nice
GUIs too and can be integrated in most Java IDEs. It has the simplest
structure of the database/repository of these three. CVS is free of
charge. - Visual Source Safe is the easiest of these three to learn. It
can integrate into MSVC. It supports shared files.
- ClearCase is the most difficult of these three to learn. It can also
integrate into MSVC. It does support replicated servers and other advanced
features.

To add another one:

- Subversion (SVN) is supposed to become the successor to CVS. It addresses
problems of CVS (e.g. files cannot be renamed or moved through the CVS
interface, directories cannot be removed), but it gives up the simple
database structure. The command line interface is almost the same as CVS's,
but I guess that most GUI frontends still won't work with SVN.

CVS is the de-facto standard in the open source/free software scene. Almost
every major (and minor) project uses CVS for revision control.

 

[assaarpa]

- CVS is originally born with a command line interface, but has some nice

Why CVS clutters clientspec with folders and files it creates? Nasty habit,
Perforce never needed to create files in the clientspec.

- Visual Source Safe is the easiest of these three to learn. It can

Does no tolerance for user error or malfunction, if client drops out in
middle of submit for example it could corrupt the whole database. Hope one
has recent backups.

- ClearCase is the most difficult of these three to learn. It can also

Haven't used. Recommend Perforce it's great (though some say it is expensive
to license).

 

[Rolf Magnus]

Why CVS clutters clientspec with folders and files it creates?

So that it knows e.g. which server or directory to get the repository from
or which files are new. Why does that bother you?

 

[Niels Dybdahl]

Why CVS clutters clientspec with folders and files it creates? Nasty
habit,

Perforce never needed to create files in the clientspec.

It is much more evident how CVS works compared to SourceSafe and ClearCase.
One of the reasons is that its datastructures follow the sourcefiles. So
this might actually be an advantage.

Does no tolerance for user error or malfunction, if client drops out in
middle of submit for example it could corrupt the whole database. Hope one
has recent backups.

We have used SourceSafe for 7 years now without a single of these problems.
But in any case make a good backup of your version system
database/repository !

Haven't used. Recommend Perforce it's great (though some say it is expensive
to license).

On which points is it great ? I have used the three mentioned systems. All
fullfills simple usage. One is easy to learn, one is free of cost and one
has very advanced functionality.

Niels Dybdahl

 

[Thomas Matthews]

You should use a version control system like:
- CVS
- Visual Source Safe
- Clearcase

You will be able to track all your code changes and will be able to
merge changes from one version branch to another.

Deepa

There is also PVCS.


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Thomas Matthews

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Other sites:
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[Siemel Naran]

How do you guys/gals keep track of changes in your software? How do you
revert to an older version if the new one gets out of control?

What I do is every version that works I create a new folder named VerName++
and save there so I can revert back to it if needed. There has to be a
better way to do this. Please advise.

The VerName folder method is good. After all, we may want to use the old
version code to read a file in the old format, and then save it to the new
format using the new version code. So all of the code should be accessible.

We should also consider using namespaces to partition the code. Right now
I'm still learning the ways to do this, so don't know much about it at
present.

As for keeping track of old versions of the code, merging patch fixes into
different code lines in order to support customers on different code lines,
the best way seems to be to use 3rd party versioning tools as others have
pointed out. There are many other packages other than the big three
mentioned in EventHelix.com's reply. Just do a search in the internet.

 

[Vyacheslav Kononenko]

You should use a version control system like:
- CVS
- Visual Source Safe
- Clearcase

You will be able to track all your code changes and will be able to
merge changes from one version branch to another.

Deepa

Do not forget http://www.bitkeeper.com/ as well.

 

[Mike Smith]

Haven't used. Recommend Perforce it's great (though some say it is expensive
to license).

I agree with the P4 recommendation. Meanwhile, for personal development
purposes, the server is free for use by a single client.

 

[Mike Smith]

On which points is it great ? I have used the three mentioned systems. All
fullfills simple usage. One is easy to learn, one is free of cost and one
has very advanced functionality.

The one that is easy to learn (SourceSafe) has serious reliability
issues, and does not perform well over remote networks. The one that is
very advanced (ClearCase) is also hideously expensive and difficult to
learn. The one that is free (CVS) is not as easy to learn, nor as easy
to setup (especially on Windows systems) as VSS (but certainly easier
than CC), and is lacking in some features (most importantly, IMO, atomic
changelists, though VSS lacks these as well).

P4, meanwhile, is no harder to learn than VSS, easier to set up than
CVS, much simpler than CC, robust and reliable, including over remote
networks, possesses atomic changelists, a simple job tracking system,
and other desirable features, and though not free, is reasonably priced
(especially compared to CC). It's not necessarily a perfect fit for
everyone, but it should be seriously considered by anyone looking to
implement source control at their location, and for personal use, IMO,
is a dead-lock no-brainer.