We are looking for a Version Control System to change our current Source Safe one. We are using it along with Visual Studio. We've failed so far - and the main reason for it is that all the alternatives we see doesn't support one or more features of VSS, especially one that we use widely - file share! What's up with that?
Alternatives like Source Gear claim to support them, but I gotta tell you that they do that very poorly. Not to mention that they are way slower than Source Safe, and have even more bugs.
What alternatives we do have to source version systems that do support file share? Or is there a reason to not use features like this? Please share your experience and support your comments.
EDIT:
By Share File I mean that I can checkout a file from any project that is sharing it, do some changes and then all get the latest version. It is very useful when working with C++ projects, or even C# Web Projects. I want to be able to share a file without the need to make another library for that.
From MSDN:
Sharing Files or Projects
Visual SourceSafe has a Share command that allows sharing of files or projects. For use of the command, see How to: Share an Item.
When you request file sharing, Visual SourceSafe creates a shared link between the versions of the file in the projects that share the file. When you check in the file to one of the projects, your changes are automatically checked in to all the sharing projects. All the projects that share a specific file are listed in the Links tab for the file.
When you share a Visual SourceSafe project, you create a completely new duplicate project under the current project. All the files in the new project are shared with the corresponding file copies in the shared project, and changes in one are reflected in the other during check-ins to the Visual SourceSafe database.
Other tools do have similar concepts, though not always with the same name or exactly the same semantics. Off the top of my head:
Subversion externals
MKS SI (shudder) calls them shared sub-projects
I tend to avoid them because it indicates there are some other issues with my project. If the resources are needed across many projects, I package them as a library and set my other projects to depend upon that artifact (using a dependency management tool such as Maven or Ivy to manage the dependencies)
In Subversion, you can share a whole folder (and its subfolders of course) with the svn:external property.
And since version 1.6 you can also share files.
In Git, those are called "submodules" - not sure if they work for single files though.
This post http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlee/archive/2006/07/20/sharing-files-in-team-foundation-server.aspx shows how you can accomplish the same thing with Visual Studio and TFS.
In StarTeam you can share files across projects.
I apologize if this is not really addressing the original question but depending on your will to "change mindset" for which version control system to use I would strongly suggest moving to a distributed one such as Mercurial or Git. There are plug-ins for Windows Explorer and Visual Studio for both.
As to specific features such as VSS-style file sharing I suggest setting up a Continous Integration environment like TeamCity and configure it appropriately.
It's a steep curve at first but awesome and time-efficient once your staff and servers know what to do.
Related
I am new to TFS and I'm trying to add some custom library files that the whole team uses into Team explorer in Visual Studio. It's library files of Sahi Testing tool so that any changes made to the files can be seen on all machines. I have tried searching online but could not find exactly what I want. Help
Basically, you have the following options:
If you have Nuget Packages for the libraries, you do not necessarily have to add the packages to source control and restore them when you need them. See this link for details.
As an alternative, you can add libraries as binary files to source control so that each developer or build server can retrieve them together with the source code. It's a good practice, to add them to a special location so that they are located in one place and not spread over the solution. However, only use this approach for binaries that do not change too often. Otherwise, you might bloat your TFS database if the files are large and change very often.
We are currently migrating our source control to Visual Studio Online. A feature we had in our old system (SourceGear Vault) was to share projects between solutions. Although this created a folder for our Framework project in each solution it kept it up to date when changes were checked in.
This is useful to us as it allows us to work on the Framework code in all the Solutions that are using it. I know its better practice to just compile the dlls and reference them - at this point in development we want to continue having full code access and debugging in all the solutions using this core framework.
Any help very much appreciated.
You have a few equally valid options for handling shared projects:
Reference the same project from each solution that needs it.
This gives you full control over the source code of the shared project while you work on the consuming solution, and may allow for easier debugging.
The downside here is that maintenance and releases may become trickier if Solution A is being released on Thursday, but Solution B is being released in 3 months and is in the middle of a huge refactoring cycle that has significantly modified Shared Component X, and Shared Component X isn't stable enough to be released.
Reference shared components from an internal NuGet repo.
You set up your release pipeline to push the shared components into NuGet as part of your release process (ideally, using a purpose-built release management tool... Microsoft Release Management is what I have in mind here) -- you check the code in, project gets built. Release process packages it up and pushes it into NuGet as a "prerelease" version. You reference the latest version in anything that needs the latest version.
If you need to reference a known-good, stable version, you just make sure your project is configured to pull a specific version from NuGet.
When you're done, you've tested the shared thing, and you know everything is good, you approve the prerelease version, and the same binaries are repackaged into a "stable" version.
The downside here is that there are some additional software requirements, configuration, and training for your team. This would be my recommended approach.
Check binaries into source control.
I don't recommend this one -- you end up bloating your source control repo (and if you're using Git, it's an explicitly stated anti-pattern -- never put binaries into Git, it causes long-term severe performance problems), and it's never exactly clear which projects are using which versions of which assemblies. It's a maintenance nightmare.
(1) is the best approach if you're releasing everything in lockstep and don't have to worry about maintaining separate versions.
(2) is the best approach if #1 is false.
(3) is the best approach if #1 is false and you're a time traveler who is posting from 2006.
Have you considered implementing Symbol Server and Source Server indexing with the check-in binaries or NuGet repo approach? This allows you to easily get back to the source while debugging and it's coming from a single known location. Visual Studio Online and Team Foundation Server have built-in support for helping you out with getting this setup during your build process. Here's more information in a write-up here: Source Server and Symbol Server Support in Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Online
Thanks for the responses. We actually found a solution that works well for us. We branch our framework project into the implementation projects when we want access to the code base. If not we just use the DLLs
If it is then altered and checked into the implementation project it can be merged back with the other Framework branches easily when ready.
This probably wouldn't work well if the Framework code was being developed heavily, as it is now its only undergoing small additions and tweaks so wont be plagued with merge issues.
I have to agree with the majority. I just ran into the same issue. I implemented the Nuget Gallery Site on the internal network. It was a pain to implement, but once implemented, it's easy to use. I created a class library project that implements ADO.Net and the EntityFramework. I bundled it into a NuGet package and uploaded it to the internal NuGet gallery. From there I was able to add a package source to the internal NuGet gallery and grab the package that I uploaded. Very simple and convenient.
I set up the NuGet Gallery with Visual Studios 2017. FYI: Make sure that building the project isn't part of the Publish. It will not render with a ViewHelper.cshtml error.
I created the projects with Visual Studios 2015. I ran the command prompt as administrator. I also had to copy the NuGet.exe file into the directory where the project file existed.
Check out the below links for more information.
NuGet Gallery
Hosting NuGet Gallery
Create and Publish Package
Creating a Package
Create .Net Standard Package
I have a ASP.NET project that consists of many C# libraries in addition to the web project. The problem (for some reason) is that all projects that make up the web application are NOT added into one solution within a same visual studio. Instead, most projects are separated within individual visual studio. All projects are stored in source control, and shared by other developers.
Thus, the question is that how to find usage of any code, like "Find Usage" via Resharper. Is there any tools or tricks that allows me to do that like Resharper's Find Usage.
Any advice?
It looks like you're in something of a bind. My suggestion would be to simply make your own source control branch, and in that branch, you can create a new SLN file, add all of the projects, replace their binary project references by project references and then call Find Usages. Then, if you need to do any changes on the basis of Find Usage info, simply merge those in without merging PROJ or SLN files.
If these library projects are referenced as DLL files rather than the project references the only way is to open all the one-project solutions and search there by 'text'. There are some tips/tricks, which could simplify navigation a bit.
P.S. The situation you described looks far from convenient. I agree with Dmitri - you might consider to discuss with your team to switch onto referencing projects rather than using binaries. Once you switch each developer will be able to create local either solutions with the projects involved, or maybe you will agree on new common source controlled solutions.
We have a system that is largely written in PowerBuilder 11.5 and we are using a single StarTeam project to hold the source code.
Now we are wanting to add some related websites developed in ASP.NET with Visual Studio 2010 to source control as well. We would like them to be able to share the same set of Change Requests as the PowerBuilder code. Since in StarTeam Change Requests sets are tied to a StarTeam project this means we will have to put the web sites into the same StarTeam project as the PowerBuilder files.
Are there any pitfalls related to putting projects from different development environments into the same StarTeam project?
What we do with Merant and Subversion is create a folder within the project for the Pb code. So the code from a variety of places is in the same project, but there is a subfolder within the project for the different sources.
CRs are not limited to a single project. You can create CRs and share them wherever you want on the same server instance, even between projects. You'd need to be careful to not branch the shared version so any CR property changes are visible to both sides. This isn't automatic, but possible at least.
Having the two projects share a single view is probably easier, especially if a single change needs to edit files in both products.
With Visual Studio (2008), is it possible to load a project (to a solution) that exists on a remote location ?
Basically what I want to do is somehow "host" a VS Project online and then load this project to a solution from a remote location. Is this possible in some way?
This is so that I can keep integrity when loading my Utils Library (used in tons of projects) and I don't want copies of my project in different projects and all having different versions etc...
I know that a possible solution is to have the Utils Library project hosted in SVN and then the folder would sync to it directly, but is there any other way to do this (ie, something more direct) ?
Yes, if you can map a network drive to it, the you can open the files from the location in visual studio.
you can map network drives to ftp servers by entering "ftp://your-ftp-server" in the path box.
Like others have said though, it's not really recommended. VS reads/writes a lot more than just to edit the main project files, it does all kinds of other stuff, so your network traffic be higher than you really want.
Or you could look at dropbox. It comes with a explorer addin that keeps your local PC in sync with the server.
My recommendation would be to use source control like subversion though.
It is possible, but not recommended (you'd be better using some form of source control, be it SVN, or a shared source provider like Codeplex (for open source projects) or TFS Preview (for closed source projects)
Is it not simpler just to have the compiled dll referenced in each solution? The way you are proposing is going to open you to changes to the project for one solution causing problems in a bunch of other solutions, that you might not immediately see.
Better to have a version of the Utils dll referenced in each sub solution and you can then update that dll when necessary, and test at the same time.