Re: Thoughts on choosing a source code control system?
Re: Thoughts on choosing a source code control system?
- Subject: Re: Thoughts on choosing a source code control system?
- From: Arturo Pérez <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 21:08:32 -0500
Hi Janine,
I've used SCCS (not rcs), ClearCase, CVS, Perforce, and Subversion.
I've always intensely disliked CVS because of its limitations (not
being able to track file renames, give me a break!). It has other
flaws that are all to well known.
Subversion is an attempt to make a CVS without the CVS flaws. From
that point of view it succeeds. But the whole issue of tagging really
rubs me the wrong way. Sure, copies are cheap but I want tags, too!
If you're used to CVS then you should feel relatively at home with
Subversion. I use it at work and for the price you can't complain too
much.
ClearCase is very nice but very expensive. Perforce is also very nice
(don't know if it's as good as clearcase). I've used it for personal
use for the last few years, on and off. The GUI is nice and its
features are very well thought out. I like its integration with Xcode
but you do need the standalone GUI.
If interoperability (i.e. distributed development model) is a necessity
I would stick with Subversion. Otherwise all the remote developers
would complain. But, if interfacing with a dispersed team of
developers is not a problem, I would use Perforce.
-arturo
On Mar 11, 2006, at 4:24 PM, email@hidden wrote:
Hi all,
I hope this doesn't kick off a flame war; I know this can be one of
those semi-religious topics. But I'm hoping we can have a civil
discussion about it.
I've used CVS forever, and want to move into something more modern. I
heard from several people I really trust that Perforce is da bomb, and
in my tests it worked just fine. I had occasion to use their support,
and was impressed by how good it was. However, the $800 per seat cost
is pretty steep for a small company, and it seemed clear from reading
both the Xcode and WO lists that there are a lot of people using
Subversion. So I decided to look into that.
After reading through the Manning book on Subversion, I was starting
to have doubts. There were a distressing number of places where the
author seemed to be giving workarounds to limitations in Subversion,
without quite admitting that was what he was doing. I just didn't
feel like I was reading about a polished product, one that would be so
much better than CVS that it would be worth the effort to switch.
However the siren call of "free" was still beckoning me, so I started
monitoring the Subversion user's list.
I don't read all the posts there but from the ones I do read it seems
like a bit of a pattern is emerging. The users there are extremely
protective of their software of choice, and they don't take kindly to
people suggesting improvements. There was recently a knockdown
dragout over whether the "cvs tag" functionality should be added to
Subversion or not. Additionally, it appears that the Subversion
developers are not terribly interested in what the user community
cares about; a good number of the replies on the tags thread could be
boiled down to "Subversion rulez, we don't need no stinkin' tags, and
why are you bothering to argue about this since the developers don't
take requests". It was not a terribly impressive or inspiring
exchange. I've been part of communities like this before and it seems
to me that when the users have a bad attitude they usually caught it
from the developers, and when the developers have a bad attitude the
software ends up suffering.
OTOH, there have been some big splashy conversions to Subversion
lately; Sourceforge is now offering it, among others. So it's not
like the Subversion project is going to fade into petulant obscurity
any time soon, even if they deserved to.
So... any thoughts on why I should (or should not) go with Subversion
or Perforce or something else entirely are all welcome. Also, for
those using Subversion, are you using it through Xcode or with some
other front end? It seems that some of it's limitations can be solved
by using the right client software, but there are so many to choose
from that it's hard to tell which one is the best.
Thanks!
janine
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
email@hidden
This email sent to email@hidden
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden