Going against the common source control used in the organisation

Question

The company I work for exclusively uses Clearcase. I feel it is not worth the effort to learn and use it as my project would not involve too many people(max of upto 3 people), neither would it involve fancy development flow. How do I convince my manager on using a separate source control for this when they bring up the point of "IT supported and uniform source control through out the company" against my suggestion? Or is that particular point valid and I should go with Clearcase?

Thanks...

PS: I was thinking of using Subversion.

Answer 1

If it's the company standard, then there should be people in the company that know it that can help you get started with it. They should be able to set up your particular IDE to work with it, and make everything as seamless as possible for you. You shouldn't have to learn anything crazy in order to use it - there should be clear instructions.

If there's not, then you're not getting the benefit of "IT supported and uniform source control through out the company" and it makes no difference what you use.

After working through this process, if an argument can be made that there's a better source control that would work better through the firm, you should make it. If it's a company standard, it shouldn't be a pain in the neck to use.

Answer 2

First of all, my condolences.

Is Clearcase that difficult to learn? If yes, I'd consider that a strike against it. If not, you might be better off just going with the flow and learning it.

The 3 people on your team aren't likely to be the ones that maintain the code over its software life, so that argument goes against you as well.

How big is the organization? It's easier for 3 people to learn Clearcase than for X to learn Subversion.

It would depend a lot on your boss and his/her willingness to consider alternatives.

Subversion would certainly be easy to set up and use. I'd hate to be using Clearcase myself.

But there are a lot of factors against you. Good luck.