In the “version control how to” series, we talked a lot about how to use a version control tool as well as the usage scenarios and the benefits. I was asked questions, from emails, forums, etc, on how to choose a version control system. When going through those questions, I decided to collect them and share the answers in my blog.
1. Whether to continue using Visual SourceSafe
I believe a lot of people hate VSS. You can easily make a list of evils to convince people not to use VSS: fragile databases, poor remote performance, etc. Some of our customers may tell me problems he/she was experiencing, such as getting the “Access Denied” message when accessing their VSS database. Both the customer and I understand that it is a VSS database issue again. The analyze tool of VSS cannot pick up all the errors and there is few ways we can think up of to solve the problem. At that moment, I would wonder why not migrating to other source control tools, such as SourceAnywhere Standalone with much more stable databases stored in SQL Server.
Regardless of these, I understand some companies and organizations have to stick with VSS temporarily or much longer than they expected for different reasons, such as financial, complicate processes. This is also why over the past years Dynamsoft keeps on improving SourceAnywhere for VSS, an add-on tool of VSS, to solve some VSS problems, especially the remote performance.
2. Can I trust hosting services?
When going through some forums, I always see some questions like “Is it safe to let some hosting company to manage my database”. The answer is positive for sure. The hosting process nowadays is very mature, and it does help a lot when you don’t want to be involved in purchasing extra facilities, setting up servers, backing up the databases, etc. But before adopting a hosting service, please do evaluate the hosting company carefully. Learn about their customer service, backup mechanism, crisis recovery, etc.
3. What if I’m the single developer?
Some people might be wondering: If I’m the single developer, do I still need to use a source control tool? Try to ask the following questions and get the answer by yourself:
- How do you back up your projects?
- What’s your current way to get or roll back to a historic version?
- How do you compare the latest version to a historic version to help you do like code reviews, etc.
- What if you are working on several different projects and want to use a public module?
4. You are not choosing the best source control tool but the one fitting your requirements best.
There are a lot of source control tools out there nowadays: Git is famous for its fast performance and well-designed share/branch features. SourceAnywhere gained great feedback for its speed, seamless integration with IDE and good customer service behind it. Open source tools are attractive as they are free. However, if you want both good quality of the product and great customers service whenever you have questions, paid service is a much better option.
Which source control tool are you using? Are you enjoying your current version control system? Share your info and tell us what kind of source control tool is good in your opinion.