VS .NET source control options

By aspatton | April 12, 2005 | ASP.NET

I’ve always been a bit surprised at the lack of source control options from Microsoft. The rudimentary Visual SourceSafe (VSS)offering is okay for small teams and small projects that are housed under one roof, but expand beyond any those parameters and troubles arise. Microsoft doesn’t even use it for its in-house projects.

I’ve worked with disconnected dispersed teams for the past few years and VSS just doesn’t fill the need. One product I have used extensively with recent projects is from an IBM company – Rational’s ClearCase. Their Visual Studio .NET integration is powerful and working across a network is possible. Another good product I’ve used in the past is SourceGear Vault.

I’ve read many overviews of the upcoming Team System in the next version of Visual Studio .NET to go along with .NET Framework 2.0, and it seems a bit promising so maybe Microsoft has learned a thing or two.

aspatton

{ 11 comments }

SURFThru.com November 18, 2008 at 7:58 pm: I use SourceGear Vault. It is a 3 tier system. Intergates with Visual Studio, has a stand alone client, stores all source in SQL Server. You can also use the stand alone client to check in documents and other objects. Source Gear is an excellent choice.
SURFThru.com
Catherine Sea January 25, 2008 at 6:52 pm: Hi Aspatton,
I am Catherine from Dynamsoft. I’d like to recommend Dynamsoft SourceAnywhere Standalone for you.
It is an SQL-based version control application that provides all of the key features of VSS, plus much more. It comes with GUI client, command client, SDK, Eclipse plug-in, Visual Studio 6/2003/2005/2008 integration, Dreamweaver/Flash integration, cross-platform client. All are in one product. Besides that, SourceAnywhere Standalone offers a unique feature, Web Deployment through FTP.
Here is the home page of SourceAnywhere Standalone:
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/SAWstandalone_Overview.aspx
The SaaS Edition – SourceAnywhere Hosted is also available.
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/SAWhosted_Overview.aspx
You can take a look.
Thanks.
Catherine Sea
http://www.dynamsoft.com
The leading developer of version control and issue tracking software
Kolik June 14, 2006 at 7:46 pm: But hey, is there any free alternative?
stefano March 24, 2006 at 12:44 pm: I’m using CLearCase and Visual Studio .NET too, but I can’t say I’m very happy…maybe the problems are due to our poor experience with ClearCase, but above all the integration with .NET seems to be very complex and not really effetcive.
Any suggestion on tuning the interaction between the two tools would be well appreciated.
puco July 19, 2005 at 3:10 am: AFAIK MS has it’s own proprietary non-public system, but migrates to Team System (or already migrated). I wonder at how large development teams is Team System targeted?
orbitalgroup April 16, 2005 at 10:23 am: I too am also a user of SourceGear Vault, but eagerly await the VS 2005 source control system. A few questions, what does Microsoft use for in house projects? and, What are the other commercial alternatives apart from the IBM and OpenSource offerings?
robredford April 13, 2005 at 5:35 pm: The problem with SourceGear (and I believe Subversion as well) is that they lack workflow. We considered both of them in my office, but needed that feature
kwallenbeck April 13, 2005 at 10:51 am: We also use SourceGear Vault and what a great product. It is easy to install, fairly inexpensive, and easy to manage. We use it standalone and integrated into VS.Net. That’s my plug:)
hillsy April 12, 2005 at 3:13 am: We use Subversion for all our projects, including VS.NET. The only – minor – downside is that ASP.NET web projects don’t like the .svn hidden folders that the Subversion client creates. It’s a bug in VS.NET. So it’s necessary to use a patched build of the client. Apparently VS.NET 2005 fixes this.
Jade Ohlhauser April 12, 2005 at 2:08 am: We’re happy with Borland StarTeam: http://www.borland.com/starteam/
It’s our defect tracking, task management, document control, and source control (integrated with VS.NET, of course)
dalangalma April 12, 2005 at 2:01 am: You could always just go with good ole CVS: http://www.codeproject.com/macro/CVS_with_VSNET.asp