I am programming in Visual Studio 2010, using TortiseSVN and VisualSVN as my client to connect to SVN repositories.
I am having a bit of a frequent problem though with the whole SVN thing in general. One thing that keeps cropping up is that if I make changes to files - namely filenames, or move them to new folders, etc, I end up getting all kinds of conflicts with the repository and it just causes all sorts of strange errors.
I understand the importance of version control and check-in/check-out access like this, but what do most of you do to deal with this kind of thing? I mean, I've tried doing the whole 'Remove from Subversion', change my file, then 'Add to Subversion' thing, and it just doesn't seem to do the job very well. This is especially frustrating when working on web projects where filenames can change very frequently as a project evolves and becomes multifaceted.
Are there any standard ways to deal with this kind of thing, or is it just one of the flaws of SVN in general?
First I must admit that over the last years I stepped in every pitfall SVN offers.
But in 99% it was my fault.
Common mistakes are:
Renaming a file and only changing lowercase.txt to UPPERCASE.txt (Windows only, to avoid this change the name to UPPERCASE1.txt first and than to rename to UPPERCASE.txt)
Using the explorer for Rename / Delete / Move operations (better use Tortoises Build-In methods
Cross Merge related conflicts
and some more I can't remember at the moment.
I haven't used visualsvn yet, but I think it is build on top of Tortoise. If you use Visual Studio, I would recommend ankhsvn http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/ which has a great integration into visual studio and catches most mistakes you can make (all from within the IDE).
Another tip: don't try to move/delete/rename a whole bunch of files AND directories in one commit. There is at least a couple of bugs in subversion server and client v1.6 (where both Ankhsvn and tortoise depend on) that screw up at least your working copy. A multiple commit approach will work (so first rename, commit, then move one folder, commit, etc).
Subversion processes file name changes as a delete and an add, which can be somewhat problematic. It's just an inherent limitation of Subversion and is a part of why some of us have switched to using different version control systems.
We are using VSS for version control (changing to another version control system is not an option right now), and are occassionally running into issues where a file has been completely deprecated with its functionality split into other new files. For historical archival reasons we need to keep those files in the version control sytem. Is there some way to clearly mark them as deprecated and no longer used?
Delete the files?
Deleting does not remove the historical versions - there is a separate command Destroy to do that.
We have multiple developers working on the same code base. We also are trying to use SourceSafe (6.0)
When one developer makes code changes to their local copy, we note it in a list of changed objects for this release.
When it's time to compile our next release, we open the "master" copy, update all the changes from SourceSafe to the master copy, then compile.
At this point, all the other developers code is now out of sync with the master copy, and we need to get all the changes pushed downhill to all the developers local copies, so we're all looking at the same version of source at the start of a new release cycle.
Is there a way to have SourceSafe update the local copies with the latest changes, or do we need to do it manually basaed on the list of changed objects (which is what we're doing now...) Please don't tell me to use "Get Latest Version". It only works on one file at a time, and is the process we're using now anyway.
I believe your process is simply incorrect. When your devs get in, just have everyone Get Latest. When your developers want to make a change, have them check out the file. This way, it's one dev working on a single file at a time.
If you want multiple people working on the same file, I'd switch to subversion (there is a vb plugin for it).
There is a reason why the SCC tools work the way they do - it's been tried and tested over the last 20 years.
Are there any native Git implementations for Windows that do not require Cygwin? I've become a fan of the TortoiseSVN client, and would really like to see a similar Git client for Windows.
Edit: I am also considering Mercurial, but would prefer to check out a few before I make a decision.
There is a TortoiseGit -- Window Explore Extenstion to Operate Git.
I started GitExtensions about a week ago. Allthough version 0.6 is a pretty complete package, I do not consider it release-ready yet. The toolset should be ready for its first stable release in a few days. There are a few things I need to fix before anyone should use it in production. The most important problem now is that the shell extension part is written in c# and therefore can cause problems. I'm rewriting this in c++ at the moment, should just take another few hours. I also want to build in some features that should prevent users from screwing up (like create a stash ontop of another stash and throwing away work or commiting changes when in the middle of a merge). I allready finished allmost all git commands I ever use (push, pull, fetch, stash, branch, commit, merge, format-patch, am, apply, etc), so it should be usable pretty soon. The toolset is written in C# (.Net 3.5 until version 0.6, later versions use .Net 2.0) except the shell extension part. There is also a visual studio plugin, but this is still pretty basic.
I have not tried TortoiseGit yet btw, but I really like TortoiseSVN!
Henk
Take a look at MSysGit. However this is just the command line git compiled with MingW instead of cygwin. This is not a GUI Tool like TortoiseSVN.
There is GitExtensions that takes the same path as Tortoise but it does not look ready yet.
Have you tried looking at the TortoiseGit page on Google Code? I believe it's the same project as the other link posted, but it's a bit friendlier. You can download the latest version as an installer from there.
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Background
I work on a lot of small projects (prototypes, demos, one-offs, etc.). They are mostly coded in Visual Studio (WPF or ASP.NET with code written in C#). Usually, I am the only coder. Occasionally, I work with one other person. The projects come and go, usually in a matter of months, but I have a constantly evolving set of common code libraries that I reuse.
The problem
I've tried to use source control software before (SourceGear Vault), but it seemed like a lot of overhead when working on a small project, especially when I was the only programmer. Still, I would like some of the features that version control offers.
Here's a list of features I'd like to have:
Let me look at any file in an older version of my project instantly. Please don't force me through the rigmarole of (1) checking in my current work, (2) reverting my local copy to the old version, and (3) checking the current version back out so I can once again work on it.
In fact, if I'm the only one on the project, I don't ever want to check out. The only thing I want to be able to do is say, "Please save what I have now as version 2.5."
Store my data efficiently. If I have 100 Mb of media in my project, I don't want that to get copied with every new version I release. Only copy what changes.
Let me keep my common library code files in a single location on my hard drive so that all my current projects can benefit from any bug fixes or improvements I make to my library. I don't want to have to keep copying my library to other projects every time I make a change.
However, do let me go back in time to any version of any project and see what the source code (including the library code) looked like at the time that version was released.
Please don't make me store a special database server on my machine that makes my computer take longer to start up and/or uses resources when I'm not even programming.
Does this exist?
If not, how close can I get?
Edit 1: TortoiseSVN impressions
I did some experimenting with Subversion. A couple observations:
Once you check something in to a repository, it does stuff to your files. It puts these hidden .svn folders inside your project folders. It messes with folder icons. I'm still yet to get my project back to "normal". Unversion a working copy got me part of the way there, but I still have folders with blue question mark icons. This makes me grumpy :-/ Update: finally got rid of the folder icons by manually creating new folders and copying the folders over. (Not good.)
I installed the open source plugin for Visual Studio (AnkhSVN). After creating a fresh repository in my hard drive, I attempted to check in a solution from Visual Studio. It did exact what I was afraid it would do. It checked in only the folders and files that are physically (from the POV of the file system) inside my solution folder. In order to accomplish item #5 above, I need all source code used by solution to be check in. I attempted to do this by hand, but it wasn't a user friendly process (for one thing, when I selected multiple library projects at once and attempted to check them in, it only appeared to check in the first one). Then, I started getting error dialogs when I tried to check in subsequent projects.
So, I'm a little frustrated with SVN (and its supporting software) at this point.
Edit 2: TortoiseHG impressions
I'm trying out Mercurial now (TortoiseHG). It was a little bit difficult to figure out at first, no better or worse than TortoiseSVN I'd say. I noticed an RPC Server on startup (relates to item 6). I figure it should be possible to turn this off if I'm not sharing anything with anyone, but it wasn't something I could figure out just by looking at the options (will check out the help later).
I do appreciate having my local repository as just a single .hg folder. And, simply throwing the folder in the Recycle Bin seemed to be all I needed to do to return everything back to normal (i.e., unversion my project). When I check in (commit), it seems to offer a simple comment window only. I thought maybe there would be a place to put version numbers.
My (probably not very clever) attempt to add a Windows shortcut (a folder aliasing my library projects) failed, not that I really thought it would work :) I thought maybe this would be a sneaky way to get my library projects (currently located elsewhere) included in the repository. But no. Maybe I'll try out "subrepos", but that feature is under construction. So, iffy that I'll be able to do items 4 and 5 without some manual syncing.
Any of the distributed source control solutions seem to match your requirements. Take a look at bazaar, git or mercurial (already mentioned above). Personally I have been using bazaar since v0.92 and have no complaints.
Edit: Heck, after looking at it again, I'm pretty sure any of those 3 solutions handles all 6 of your requested features.
Distributed Version Control Systems (Mercurial, Bazaar, Git) are nice in that they can be completely self-contained in a single directory (.hg, .bzr, .git) in the top of the working copy, where Subversion uses a separate repository directory, in addition to .svn directories in every directory of your working copy.
Mercurial and Subversion are probably the easiest to use on Windows, with TortoiseHG and TortoiseSVN; the Bazaar GUIs have also been improving. Apparently there is also TortoiseGit, though I haven't tried it. If you like the command line, Easy Git seems to be a bit nicer to use than the standard git commands.
I'd like to address point 4, common libraries, in more detail. Unfortunately I don't think any of them will be too easy to use, since I don't think they're directly supported by GUIs (I could be wrong). The only one of these I've actually used in practice is Subversion Externals.
Subversion is reasonably good at this job; you can use Externals (see the chapter in the SVN book), but to associate versions of a project with versions of a library you need to "pin" the library revision in the externals definition (which is itself versioned, as a property of the directory).
Mercurial supports something similar, but both solutions seem a bit immature: subrepository support built-in to the latest version and the "Forest Extension".
Git has "submodule" support.
I haven't seen anything like sub-respositories or sub-modules for Bazaar, unfortunately.
I think Fog Creek's new product, Kiln, will get you pretty close. In response to your specific points:
This is easily done through the web interface -- you don't need to touch your local copy or update. Just find the file you want, click the revision you want to see, and your code will be in front of you.
I'm not sure you can do things exactly like "Please save this as version 2.5", but you can add unique tags to changesets that allow you to identify a special revision (where "special" can mean whatever it wants to you).
Mercurial does a great job of this already (which Kiln uses in the back end), so there shouldn't be any problems in this regard.
By creating different repositories, you can easily have one central 'core' section which is consistent across various projects (though I'm not entirely sure if this is what you're talking about).
I think most version control systems allow you to do this...
Kiln is hosted, so there's no hit on performance to your local machine. The code you commit to the system is kept safe and secure.
Best of all, Kiln is free for up to two licenses by way of their Student and Startup Edition (which also gets you a free copy of FogBugz).
Kiln is in public beta right now -- you can request your account at my first link -- and users are being let as more and more problems are already resolved. (For some idea of what current beta users are saying, take a look at the Kiln Knowledge Exchange site that's dedicated to feedback.)
(Full Disclosure: I am an intern currently working at Fog Creek)
For your requirements I would recommend subversion.
Let me look at any file in an older version of my project instantly. Please don't force me through the rigmarole of (1) checking in my current work, (2) reverting my local copy to the old version, and (3) checking the current version back out so I can once again work on it.
You can use the repository browser of Tortoise Svn to navigate to every existing version easily.
In fact, if I'm the only one on the project, I don't ever want to check out. The only thing I want to be able to do is say, "Please save what I have now as version 2.5."
This is done by svn copy . svn://localhost/tags/2.5.
Store my data efficiently. If I have 100 Mb of media in my project, I don't want that to get copied with every new version I release. Only copy what changes.
Given by subversion.
Let me keep my common library code files in a single location on my hard drive so that all my current projects can benefit from any bug fixes or improvements I make to my library. I don't want to have to keep copying my library to other projects every time I make a change.
However, do let me go back in time to any version of any project and see what the source code (including the library code) looked like at the time that version was released.
Put your libraries into the same svn repository as your remaining code and you'll have global revision numbers to switch back all to a common state.
Please don't make me store a special database server on my machine that makes my computer take longer to start up and/or uses resources when I'm not even programming.
You only have to start svnserve to start a local server. If you only work on one machine you can even do without this and use your repository directly.
I'd say that Mercurial along with TortoiseHg will do what you want. Of course, since you don't seem to be requiring much, subversion with TortoiseSvn should serve equally well, if you only ever work alone, though I think mercurial is nicer for collaboration.
Mercurial:
hg cat --rev 2.5 filename (or "Annotate Files" in TortoiseHg)
hg commit ; hg tag 2.5
Mercurial stores (compressed) diffs (and "keyframes" to avoid having to apply ten thousand diffs in a row to find a version of a file). It's very efficient unless you're working with large binary files.
Symlink the library into all the projects?
OK, now that I read this point I'm thinking Mercurial's Subrepos are closer to what you want. Make your library a repository, then add it as a subrepository in each of your projects. When your library updates you'll need to hg pull in the subrepos to update it, unfortunately. But then when you commit in a project Mercurial will record the state of the library repo, so that when you check out this version later to see what it looked like you'll get the correct version of the library code.
Mercurial doesn't do that, it stores data in files.
Take a look on fossil, its single exe file.
http://www.fossil-scm.org
As people have pointed out, nearly any DVCS will probably serve you quite well for this. I thought I would mention Monotone since it hasn't been mentioned already in the thread. It uses a single binary (mtn.exe), and stores everything as a SQLite database file, nothing at all in your actual workspace except a _MTN directory on the top level (and .mtn-ignore, if you want to ignore files). To give you a quick taste I've put the mtn commands showing how one carries out your wishlist:
Let me look at any file in an older version of my project instantly.
mtn cat -r t:1.8.0 readme.txt
Please save what I have now as version 2.5
mtn tag $(mtn automate heads) 2.5
Store my data efficiently.
Monotone uses xdelta to only save the diffs, and zlib to compress the deltas (and the first version of each file, for which of course there is no delta).
Let me keep my common library code files in a single location on my hard drive so that all my current projects can benefit from any bug fixes or improvements I make to my library.
Montone has explicit support for this; quoting the manual "The purpose of merge_into_dir is to permit a project to contain another project in such a way that propagate can be used to keep the contained project up-to-date. It is meant to replace the use of nested checkouts in many circumstances."
However, do let me go back in time to any version of any project and see what the source code (including the library code) looked like at the time that version was released.
mtn up -r t:1.8.0
Please don't make me store a special database server on my machine
SQLite can be, as far as you're concerned, a single file on your disk that Monotone stores things in. There is no extra process or startup craziness (SQLite is embedded, and runs directly in the same process as the rest of Monotone), and you can feel free to ignore the fact that you can query and manipulate your Monotone repository using standard tools like the sqlite command line program or via Python or Ruby scripts.
Try GIT. Lots of positive comments about it on the Web.