Friends don’t let friends vss
07.26.07 - 02:31pm
I can’t believe I still have to rant on about this in 2007, but I think I might have no hair by the time I go home today.
First off, getting your source control out of your IDE should be a top priority. Managing the files you want to be protected by source control should be a totally different operation then working with code.. Different mindset, different jobs, it’s like organizing your bookshelf and reading, do you read inside your bookcase? MAYBE if you’re really little, but I doubt it.
Secondly, putting files in source control needs to be a single operation. If VSS doesn’t want to take one of my files because the path is too long, besides not understanding that, I really shouldn’t have to worry about what files made it in and which ones didn’t after that. VSS should boot them all out because I’ve now broken the build, and it has nothing to do with anything I can do as a developer.
Thirdly, it’s slow. Really slow. Maybe you’re always on the local network, which still isn’t real fast, but lets think about it, it’s 2007 and VPN’s are pretty commonplace. Do you work somewhere that doesn’t have a VPN? Probably not if you’re a developer, or at least a developer working on anything maintained by a team of more then 3 old men this century.
Fourthly, which I don’t even think is a word, it just takes too long to manage the idiotic structure and workflow VSS forces you into. It shouldn’t be hard to move things, if I want to move a file or project, I should just be able to move it. Why can’t I edit a file, oh it’s not checked out? Lemme check it out, 30 seconds later, oh it’s already checked out? I already forgot what I wanted to change anyway so nevermind..
Sorry for the rant but my company recently made a partnership with another organization that uses VSS, and it’s my responsibility to be the “gatekeeper” between our SVN and their VSS. And it hurts. Badly. I’m a developer, not a code librarian, but VSS forces me to be both. Thankfully our SVN repo doesn’t require a librarian, our developers can just, well, develop.
Oh dear. You poor soul.
What I dislike about VSS is that only one developer can work on any given file. Files are locked during editing.
*lol* I’ve never used SVN or CVS, though I _have_ used PVCS. My current gig uses VSS…they love the IDE integration. “Why should I have to pull up another app?” Jonathan, they like strict locking, too.
I’ve been trying to get us onto SVN (half-heartedly, I’ve had lots of other things to do), but not knowing SVN up-front makes it harder to get started.
Exclusive locking is such a ridiculous way to manage files IMO. If developers can’t merge files together I’m not sure I want them on my dev team
Honestly though, merge conflicts happen so rarely in normal development it’s crazy to lock files..
It’s not about pulling up another app IMO, it’s about separate tasks. I code in the IDE, I manage files in the file system. TortoiseSVN makes working with SVN in explorer so easy, and even the cmd line tools are darn simple. Why do I care about source control at all while I’m coding, other then knowing when to break and commit.
Dan if you have any questions on SVN hit me up.. Maybe I’ll have to talk a little at the next rails group on svn