🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8157cb$d3817.364@microforum>, adrian@microforum.com (Adrian
Sampaleanu) wrote:

> I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
> used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive
version 
> of MKS's Source Integrity.
> 
> Can anyone share their opinions on these and other competing products?  I'd 
> prefer a product with a Win95 style interface.  Source Integrity is
close, but 
> it has a few quirks (although my version is from Feb 95, so there might be 
> newer stuff from MKS).
> 
> I'm especially interested to find out about Microsoft's new version control 
> system.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Adrian


I have used a DOS/OS2 only command line driven product called TLIB, which
works well. It keeps the archive in directories and files which mimic
those in the project

I have also used a product called SOURCESAFE from OneTree which has an MS
Windows interface and also works well. It keeps the archive in a data
structure which is only accessible by the program. There is, believe it or
not, a MAC version which can share the archive with provision for MAC
nameing, but the MAC version is command line driven. Microsoft bought
OneTree recently and I saw a notice that the MAC version was now supported
by someone other than Microsoft.

adrian@microforum.com (Adrian Sampaleanu) wrote:
>I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
>used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive version 
>of MKS's Source Integrity.
>
>Can anyone share their opinions on these and other competing products?  I'd 
>prefer a product with a Win95 style interface.  Source Integrity is close, but 
>it has a few quirks (although my version is from Feb 95, so there might be 
>newer stuff from MKS).
>
>I'm especially interested to find out about Microsoft's new version control 
>system.

We use SourceSafe and LOVE IT.  I don't know how it compares to PVCS or MKS
as I haven't used those...

SourceSafe is quite fast and runs well under Windows 95.  The interface is
similar to the Explorer (tree view of projects/dirs on the left, file list
on the right).  Right-mouse button context menus all over the place.

The only thing that I hasn't got is drag'n'drop support for the Win95 shell
(you can't have it ALL I guess)...

>
>Thanks in advance,
>Adrian
>


-- 
Joe Janakovic                   Internet: joej@golddisk.com
Software Developer                        redgt@io.org
Gold Disk, Inc.
Toronto, Ont., Canada     Help stamp out, eliminate, and abolish redundancy!

In article <pwolf-2108951700220001@netmgr-807903992.qualcomm.com>, 
pwolf@qualcomm.com says...
>
>In article <8157cb$d3817.364@microforum>, adrian@microforum.com (Adrian
>Sampaleanu) wrote:
>
>> I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized 
project.  I've 
>> used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive
>version 
>> of MKS's Source Integrity.
>> 
>> Can anyone share their opinions on these and other competing products?  
I'd 
>> prefer a product with a Win95 style interface.  Source Integrity is
>close, but 
>> it has a few quirks (although my version is from Feb 95, so there 
might be 
>> newer stuff from MKS).
>> 
>> I'm especially interested to find out about Microsoft's new version 
control 
>> system.
>> 
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Adrian
>
>
>I have used a DOS/OS2 only command line driven product called TLIB, 
which
>works well. It keeps the archive in directories and files which mimic
>those in the project
>
>I have also used a product called SOURCESAFE from OneTree which has an 
MS
>Windows interface and also works well. It keeps the archive in a data
>structure which is only accessible by the program. There is, believe it 
or
>not, a MAC version which can share the archive with provision for MAC
>nameing, but the MAC version is command line driven. Microsoft bought
>OneTree recently and I saw a notice that the MAC version was now 
supported
>by someone other than Microsoft.

This isn't quite correct. If you buy SS from MS, you get the DOS, 
Windows, Windows NT and Mac version. The Unix side of SourceSafe is now 
maintained by a third party: MainSoft. These guys have a portability 
layer and tools to compile your Windows apps under Unix. I guess they 
just license the SS source code from MS, and recompile it using their 
tools. 

Greetings, 

Jan Rosseel
A.I. Systems, Belgium.

We use SourceSafe also.  I have used MKS and PVCS before, but both of
these products seem to be more complicated than SourceSafe.   Plus
there is an added benefit that SourceSafe is now a Microsoft product. 

adrian@microforum.com (Adrian Sampaleanu) wrote:

>I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
>used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive version 
>of MKS's Source Integrity.

>Can anyone share their opinions on these and other competing products?  I'd 
>prefer a product with a Win95 style interface.  Source Integrity is close, but 
>it has a few quirks (although my version is from Feb 95, so there might be 
>newer stuff from MKS).

>I'm especially interested to find out about Microsoft's new version control 
>system.

>Thanks in advance,
>Adrian
Well I recently started a project for an NT platform and went with
SourceSafe as our version control system. My first impressions were
rather mixed. The user and administrative interface are fine once you
get the thing setup, but this package is currently ignorant of any
network/groupware issues, which for a source control/configuration
management product is a bit of surprise.

Specifically: there is no network install option or support. Despite
the fact that microsoft will sell you license packs as if you could do
a network install, you can't. Secondly, the software does not
understand UNC pathnames, but requires a (lan) central administrative
directory. Think about it. What we have ended up doing is to have each
engineer do a local install, then blow that away and change the icons
to point to the executibles and directory on our server.  Hello
Microsoft! Anybody HOME? Is everbody busy fixing '95 defects?

That out of the way, I actually like CVS much better, and if there was
an NT gui front end for it I would tend to go that way instead.

adrian@microforum.com (Adrian Sampaleanu) wrote:

>I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
>used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive version 
>of MKS's Source Integrity.

In my experience, PVCS is good but expensive, especially when you need
some sort of 5 or 10 user license.  

MKS RCS caused no end of problems on my last project.  It was slow and
seemed to eat files.  We finally returned it to MKS when they choose
not to help us solve the problems.  They have a newer release, but...

I've had the most luck with a lesser know product called "TLIB".  It
is inexpensive, very fast, and has every feature I've ever needed from
a source control system.  However, it only supports DOS, NT, and (I
assume) Win95 command lines.  The speed and power of the tool makes
living with the DOS interface worth while.

  == Mike ==

adrian@microforum.com (Adrian Sampaleanu) wrote:
>I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
>used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive version 
>of MKS's Source Integrity.
>
>Can anyone share their opinions on these and other competing products?  I'd 
>prefer a product with a Win95 style interface.  Source Integrity is close, but 
>it has a few quirks (although my version is from Feb 95, so there might be 
>newer stuff from MKS).
>
>I'm especially interested to find out about Microsoft's new version control 
>system.
>

I develop under Windows NT and recently switched from PVCS to ClearCase.  
While the GUI in PVCS 5.2 is a nice improvement, there is really no
comparison with ClearCase.  While both allow you to label
a version, ClearCase provides access to versions via views.
Through a view, you see the versions of files according to the configuration
of the view, which can specify a label(s) or other criteria.  There's no need to
get read-only versions of files from an archive.  You simply cd to a drive 
representing a view and you automatically see the files.  You can have
multiple views for parallel development.  ClearCase provides GUI tools, a 
command line interface, and checkin/checkout apps that integrate nicely 
into MSVC++.

While ClearCase may take some time to learn initially, it pays off big time.
Note that it is more resource-hungry than PVCS.  However, if you have the means,
I highly recommend it :)  

Atria has a web page with more info at http://www.atria.com


Paul 

Certificate of Authenticity:  My only affiliation with Atria is as a satisfied 
user.

>I develop under Windows NT and recently switched from PVCS to ClearCase.  
>While the GUI in PVCS 5.2 is a nice improvement, there is really no
>comparison with ClearCase.  While both allow you to label
>a version, ClearCase provides access to versions via views.
>Through a view, you see the versions of files according to the 
configuration
>of the view, which can specify a label(s) or other criteria.  There's no 
need to
>get read-only versions of files from an archive.  You simply cd to a 
drive 
>representing a view and you automatically see the files.  You can have
>multiple views for parallel development.  ClearCase provides GUI tools, a 
>command line interface, and checkin/checkout apps that integrate nicely 
>into MSVC++.


As a user of PVCS I can only correct your statement that PVCS doesn't 
support access to a read only version of the files without going through 
the checkout procedure.

PVCS has a checkbox which tells the archive to create a "TIP" version, 
uncompressed in a directory specified by the PVCS administrator.  In this 
directory PVCS places a read-only version of the most recent version of 
all the files for that archive.

We use this ability in-house to manage the many shared libraries and 
source code snipets.

One reason we went with PVCS has to do with their machurity in the market, 
their cross-platform products and the additional tools they have which are 
able to integrate with the VC software (e.g., bug tracking and enhancement 
requests).

Ken
(argo@rias.com)

adrian@microforum.com (Adrian Sampaleanu) wrote:

>I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
>used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive version 
>of MKS's Source Integrity.

The product that Microsoft bought (SourceSafe) is quite nice.  Once
Metrowerks has finished the Mac port we will be using it exclusively.

I have used PVCS (the GUI one).  It is sooo slow as to be useless for
what I do.

>The product that Microsoft bought (SourceSafe) is quite nice.  

SourceSafe is bundled with VB4 Professional. Does anyone know if VC++4
will have a similar deal ?
--
Andy Dingley                          dingbat@codesmth.demon.co.uk                                          

If all it takes is an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, 
how come AOL haven't written any Shakespeare yet ?

> I'm investigating version control systems for our medium sized project.  I've 
> used ancient versions of PVCS and MKS RCS.  I have a recent Test Drive version 
> of MKS's Source Integrity.

I've used both PVCS and MKS RCS. PVCS, at the time I started
working in NT, did not support long filenames. This may have
changed. I would have used it but for this limitation, because it
was always highly reliable before (DOS and Win 3.1). PVCS has
the advantage over RCS that you can integrate it with a make
system which will check out the file if the source modification date
is newer than the object date (if you set up this dependency for
RCS, it will check out all files which have been touched, but
haven't had the source modified, such as when you add someone
to the access list).

MKS RCS for NT has been a major disappointment. We're struggling
with a problem right now -- it won't correctly check out branched
versions of files. This is _fatal_ for our project. The other major
problem (of which MKS has been aware for over a a year now,
and still hasn't fixed: if you use the 'co -g' version of checkout,
it's supposed to preserve the file modification time; however,
it always gives you the time in Greenwich meridian time if your
time zone is set for anything other than Greenwich. If you set 
your time zone to Greenwich, the time on checkouts is correct,
but the times listed with MKS's version of ls are wrong.  It's a
problem because you then have to use co without the -g option,
which gives everything a new date stamp, which forces everything
to rebuild (even if only one file has changed); but it's too dangerous
to use co -g, because it won't cause a file to be recompiled that
actually is newer than its object. I would _very_ strongly advise
that you _not_ use MKS RCS.

I've heard very nice things about SourceSafe, but haven't had
a chance to use it.

I hear raves from everyone using SourceSafe. Could someone summarize
the benefits over RCS? The only added feature I saw in the brochures
was the ability to tag archives as being used by multiple products.

Is SourceSafe integrated with internal VC++ makefiles? I would
_love_ this. Currently I can only set up dependencies to freshen
files with checkouts if I give up the internal makefile.

> I've had the most luck with a lesser know product called "TLIB".

I had endless problems with TLIB on a project where I was using
it to store binary files. Every once in a while, the archive 
would "fill up", and I'd have to start a new archive. I ended up
with 20 archives, and searching for an old version was a major
pain. 

Worse, on about 1 of 5 of the "fill ups", the archive would be
corrupted and lost. I learned fast to back up all the archives
before I did check-ins and check-outs!

The folks selling TLIB boasted that it was much more efficient
at storing binaries than PVCS. I learned later that they did
the comparisons without turning on the binary/compression flags
in the PVCS archives. Not really a fair comparison.

It's not obvious there is a good answer for anyone looking for
a good, reliable and reasonable cost version control system.

At one point, the folks who make PVCS asked me if I'd do a product
swap for my Hamilton C shell.  In the business, it's considered
kind of rude to refuse these requests unless they're completely
outrageous (like wanting to trade your shareware game for a $3,000
CAD system) and anyway, I'd been thinking I really was overdue to
get organized with a version control system.

So naturally, I did the trade and did intend to use it.  But I
quickly gave up and said the hell the with it for two reasons:
first, they have these crazy serial numbers embedded into the
thing because they're so damn worried about piracy.  Well, so are
we all, but the moment you get more worried about defeating the
pirates than about giving your paying customers a good product,
I think you've missed the whole point.  And that's the way I
felt about the PVCS system.  It was just obnoxiously implemented.

Second, I don't think I'd had it more than a few weeks before I
already began getting "update" offers, each one priced in the
hundreds of dollars.  Here again, I do know that my policy of
giving away updates free is extreme to say the least, so I don't
really expect that of other vendors, but it did seem to me that
the PVCS folks are a whole lot faster to stick their hands out
for some mighty greedy upgrade fees than I thought seemly.

Frankly, the overall impression I got was that this was a vendor
a whole lot more concerned about lining their pockets than about
ensuring their customers got satisfied.  That doesn't make them
unique, sadly, but still, I think it sucks.

If I were really seriously looking for a version control system
at this point, I think the one I'd be looking at right now is
the one MS has released.  (Is that the Sourcesafe product?  I
forget the name.)  The big thing that strikes me is that while
we can all find things to gripe about with MS, on the whole,
they do treat their customers pretty well and that goes a long,
long way with me.

Regards,
Doug Hamilton  KD1UJ  hamilton@bix.com  Ph 508-440-8307  FAX 508-440-8308
Hamilton Laboratories, 21 Shadow Oak Drive, Sudbury, MA  01776-3165, USA

We have been using SourceSafe since MicroSoft bought it and I
have not been real impressed. It does have some nice features
like sharing files between projects. We were using MicroSoft
Delta, and I think that MS replaced a dog of a product with 
another dog. We have had problems with SourceSafe barfing on
Long filenames and other strange behavior. Another minor
grievance was the splitting and rejoining of projects. We had
an absolute hell of a time rejoining a project that we had split
in two and made changes to both sides. There is no easy way to
join the project back together. We ended up doing a file by file
merge on a project that had several hundred files. This was a royal
pain in the butt.  We are currently in the process of looking for
new versioning software....any suggestions? Cost is not an issue.
As a secondary note, I tried to install SourceSafe on a Macintosh.
Your time would be better spent reformatting the disk it comes on.

John McDaniel
Systems Programmer
Gallagher Financial Systems

---------------------------------------------------------------
mcdaniel@cs.utk.edu
johnm@gfsmain.mhs.compuserve.com
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mcdaniel
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Any opinions stated here are mine and not that of my employer." 
----------------------------------------------------------------

hamilton@BIX.com (hamilton on BIX) wrote:

I use RCS which is free ware from the GNU library. I got my port
from Congruent although it might also be in the freeware distribution
from the univ of texas.

This is kind of a "hackers" solution but it does seem to work for me.


Cheers,

Grant J. Munsey, Cognicon Inc
(408)252-1135[voice], (408)448-9355[fax]
grant@cognicon.com, http://www.rahul.net/grant

In <hamilton.809400675@BIX.com>, hamilton@BIX.com (hamilton on BIX) writes:
>
>It's not obvious there is a good answer for anyone looking for
>a good, reliable and reasonable cost version control system.
>
>At one point, the folks who make PVCS asked me if I'd do a product
>swap for my Hamilton C shell.  In the business, it's considered
>kind of rude to refuse these requests unless they're completely
>outrageous (like wanting to trade your shareware game for a $3,000
>CAD system) and anyway, I'd been thinking I really was overdue to
>get organized with a version control system.
>
>So naturally, I did the trade and did intend to use it.  But I
>quickly gave up and said the hell the with it for two reasons:
>first, they have these crazy serial numbers embedded into the
>thing because they're so damn worried about piracy.  Well, so are
>we all, but the moment you get more worried about defeating the
>pirates than about giving your paying customers a good product,
>I think you've missed the whole point.  And that's the way I
>felt about the PVCS system.  It was just obnoxiously implemented.
>
>Second, I don't think I'd had it more than a few weeks before I
>already began getting "update" offers, each one priced in the
>hundreds of dollars.  Here again, I do know that my policy of
>giving away updates free is extreme to say the least, so I don't
>really expect that of other vendors, but it did seem to me that
>the PVCS folks are a whole lot faster to stick their hands out
>for some mighty greedy upgrade fees than I thought seemly.
>
>Frankly, the overall impression I got was that this was a vendor
>a whole lot more concerned about lining their pockets than about
>ensuring their customers got satisfied.  That doesn't make them
>unique, sadly, but still, I think it sucks.
>
>If I were really seriously looking for a version control system
>at this point, I think the one I'd be looking at right now is
>the one MS has released.  (Is that the Sourcesafe product?  I
>forget the name.)  The big thing that strikes me is that while
>we can all find things to gripe about with MS, on the whole,
>they do treat their customers pretty well and that goes a long,
>long way with me.
>
>Regards,
>Doug Hamilton  KD1UJ  hamilton@bix.com  Ph 508-440-8307  FAX 508-440-8308
>Hamilton Laboratories, 21 Shadow Oak Drive, Sudbury, MA  01776-3165, USA

We use cvs for our version control system...it is free and it works well, 
so long as multiple devlopers have adequate communication. We run it on our
Linux box but it shuold be portable to a Windows machine...so long as you
are running a filesystem that supports long filenames and filenames with
commas.

For a good review of various version control systems, see this URL:
   http://www.iac.honeywell.com/Pub/Tech/CM/CMTools.html

------------------------------------
Keep the Light,            TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing
Brian Jones                               As A Free Lunch...
Otter Space Software, Inc.                   Robert A. Heinlein

Has anyone had any experience with Versions by Starbase?

::Just out of curiosity::


-"Scotty"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Scott J. Walter          | "Ah'm sorrah, sir, Ah kinna fit annah
 Maverick Software        |  muhr on th' floppy.  Y' jes kinna mess
 sjwalter@winternet.com   |  wi' th' lahws o' data comprrreshun!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  "It's not a bug ... it's not a feature ... it's an ENHANCEMENT!!"

Re: MKS RCS, Michael Hiemstra wrote:
> The problems with timezones and file timestamps has been corrected
> with our 7.1a release of the software (now called Source Integrity).

A thank-you to Michael for helping with the problem. 7.1a does appear
to fix the 'co -g' problem. One of my compatriots is checking to
see whether the checkout of branched versions is fixed; if so,
I'll be satisfied.

grant@cognicon.com (Grant Munsey) wrote:

>hamilton@BIX.com (hamilton on BIX) wrote:

>I use RCS which is free ware from the GNU library. I got my port 
>from Congruent although it might also be in the freeware distribution
>from the univ of texas.

>This is kind of a "hackers" solution but it does seem to work for me.


>Cheers,

>Grant J. Munsey, Cognicon Inc
>(408)252-1135[voice], (408)448-9355[fax]
>grant@cognicon.com, http://www.rahul.net/grant

All our existing projects use RCS. We were developing embedded
software under OS/2 using Emacs. Our new development enviroment is
Windows NT but the Emacs port for NT is not as good as the OS/2 port.

Is there an NT editor available that recognises RCS files. The nice
thing about emacs is that you can use hooks and macros to customise
it. I want the editor to write protect files locked out by other
people. I don't mind writing the macros if needed.

Thanks in advance
Mike

--
Mike Morgan
mike@mjmorgan.demon.co.uk