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Thycotic
Software has always used the software
preferred by our clients and has made recommendations in some cases, mostly away
from Visual SourceSafe and its exclusive checkout or generally connected
nature. We had been using SourceGear's
Vault for our own projects and even had it
setup in our online hosted environment for access from our offices and client
locations (asides from our own products, we also have open source and internal
APIs that our developer consultants would often need to access). We had
been hearing great things in the community about Subversion and were eager to try it
out but not having an expert in the company meant we would have a learning
curve. Enter John
Morales - our new hire in November of 2005
- John joined our team biting his lip at having to use our existing source
control tools but firmly believed he could turn the tide towards his favorite
source control tool, Subversion.
After some unhappy source control experiences
(including lost source code), we decided to undertake an evaluation - our
objectives were:
- Try out Subversion with one project to see if it
is an improvement over other source control tools
- Minimize the learning curve for
developers
- Minimize developer downtime
- Maintain an online repository for access from
various locations
- Minimize administration costs
We started out slowly by moving a single project
(Secret
Server) onto the new platform but
decided to use a turn-key service provided by CVSDude (recommended by John based on his previous experiences
with them) to meet our objectives. CVSDude offers a free account for a single user or their a low
commitment base plan "Developer" which allows 4 accounts for just $30 for 3
months. This meant that we didn't have to maintain or configure the
Subversion server and could let someone else deal with backups and
uptime. Our Subversion server is now available online meaning that we
can access it from our offices and from client locations. By upgrading to
the "More Developer" plan, we were also able to get secure access (SSL) to our
repository.
We have been very happy with our evaluation of
Subversion and have subsequently made the decision to move all our product
projects to Subversion. We are using the TortoiseSVN
client - which uses Windows Explorer
as your interface to source control (using icon overlays) and you simply manage
your codebase from your filesystem. The separation of Visual Studio .NET
from the source control client also seems to be a move in the right direction -
VS.NET is more responsive and doesn't have random pauses any more (we would
sometimes see 20-30 seconds pauses when working with source control
integration). I have also been impressed with the patch capabilities and
the labelling of the repository with a version on every checkin - this makes
reviewing work much easier and helps to keep track as tasks are
completed.
For John's perspective on our conversion, read this.
Jonathan Cogley is the CEO and
founder of thycotic, a .NET consulting company and ISV in Washington DC.
thycotic has just released Thycotic Secret
Server which is a secure web-based
solution to both "What is the router's password?" and "Who has the password for
our domain name?". Secret Server is the leader in secret management
and sharing within companies and teams.
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I will be presenting at the WinProTeam Vienna
.NET Users Group on 3/1/2006 at
6pm.
We use NAnt
and CruiseControl.NET for all of our products and client projects. The
power of a continuous build for improved quality, rapid feedback and engaging
your customer is enormous! The arrival of MSBuild and its integration into
the Visual Studio suite of tools adds another great option to your possible
build solutions. If you are still building and deploying your application
on a developer's workstation, think again.
Here is the presentation blurb:
"Automate your build, quality assurance and
deployment process. NAnt is a free, open source tool
that provides a simple extensible XML-based format for doing all sorts of things
and can even be customized! See how to: separate your development, staging and
production environments - automate your test runs - archive build versions -
develop custom NAnt tasks - write C# script for
NAnt. MSBuild is Microsoft's response to
the need for an XML-based build tool that is an integral part of the new Visual
Studio 2005 platform. Come learn how to use these tools and the
enormous difference it can make to the quality of your software
development."
Jonathan Cogley is the CEO and
founder of thycotic, a .NET consulting company and ISV in Washington DC.
thycotic has just released Thycotic Secret
Server which is a secure web-based
solution to both "Where is my Hotmail password?" and "Who has the password for
our domain name?". Secret Server is the leader in secret management
and sharing within companies and teams.