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I'm interviewing this week for a position at a firm where I would be the sole initial developerplus support the application I am taking over work for. Because positions like this can vary so wildly in the details, I plan to go in advocating a number of specific approaches that would make the job workable.
One thing that I'm considering bringing up is an inclination to move the existing source code out of SourceSafe (where it is currently resident) into a better version control product like Perforce.
I've had a number of bad experiences with SourceSafe causing massive problems like permanent file lock-out and code corruption. Alone, I'm afraid that those anecdotes sound like "I want to change it because I don't like it." If I'm going to bring the subject up, I want to have a slam dunk case.
So, what are the empirical reasons that SourceSafe is viewed as an inferior product?
- Any Real-Life Visual Source Safe Horror Stories
- How do I convince my team to drop sourcesafe and move to SVN?
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There are more than 10 alternatives to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Online / Web-based and BSD. The best alternative is Git, which is both free and Open Source.
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe is a file-level version control system that permits many types of organizations to work on several project versions at the same time. This capability is particularly beneficial in a software development environment, where it is used in maintaining parallel code versions.
Command Menu Access For Visual SourceSafe, open from source control: File, Open, Project/Solution; look in the Visual SourceSafe location. For other source control plug-ins, open from source control: File, Source Control, Open from Source Control.
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) is a discontinued source control program oriented towards small software development projects. Like most source control systems, SourceSafe creates a virtual library of computer files.
See also Better SCM Initiative: Version Control Systems to Avoid.
One of the issues that I have read there, and I haven't seen mentioned so far in the answers, is that VSS has no support for deleted then recreated files: either you purge history of file (and can never recover old version), or you can create file with the same name as some deleted file had. Even CVS (which is also file-based) tried to did this right by using 'Attic' area.
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The issue I'm wreslting with now is Visual Source Safe's insistence that my project's folder structure cannot possibly be represented within the target working directory. It always thinks that a service setup project is trying to encroach on the service project and refuses to check it in. When you add a project to source control, it invariably adds another folder to its path in source control. Version control should just represent a file structure that is ALREADY WORKING on a developer's machine, without complaint.
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