SCC in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2002/2003: The good, the bad and the ugly

GrantRi inquires about what type of SCC the hobbyist programmer uses. I was going to write a comment, but decided to rant about what has been annoying me with SCC in VS.NET 2K2/3.

There are several reasons not to use the standard scc integration. For one, all this source control information is persisted inside the solution and/or project files. If you have ever tried to branch a solution, you will know what I mean. If you open the solution, you will notice that it is "bound" to the source control location it was originally branched from. To "bind" to the new location, you can use the "Change Source Control" functionality of VS.NET. In some cases you may want to get rid of this source control information. In that case you have to use the "unbind" functionality in VS.NET or alternatively alter the solution and/or project files by stripping the source control information. Secondly, the solution load time is increased if you use the SCC integration. Thirdly, if you use web projects and want to use your main development and branch versions concurrently, you're in for a big mess (although this statement also applies to other source control systems).
The only positive thing about the source control integration is that using "Open from Source Control" a solution is "gotten" automagically (provided you accept that web projects are "gotten" to your local wwwroot ).

For those who want to use the standard SCC integration in VS.NET with other sourcecontrol systems, you can use:
Working with CVS: http://www.pushok.com/soft_cvs.php
 Working with SVN: http://www.pushok.com/soft_svn.php

Personally, I'm leaning towards Subversion(Server), TortoiseSVN(Client) and ANKH(IDE Integration).
Published 06 October 2004 09:45 PM by yreynhout
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Comments

# Jason Nadal said on 06 October, 2004 05:12 PM
in re: "(provided you accept that web projects are "gotten" to your local wwwroot )."


Actually, you can even get around this, by mapping the virtual directories BEFORE you get the solution from source control -- say c:\code\mysolution\myweb\ -- no inetpub :)
# David Boschmans said on 06 October, 2004 05:24 PM
Yves, check out my blog entry http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/davidb/archive/2004/09/20/26187.aspx. It may point you to a solution for the problems with the web projects you're experiencing.
Also check out Sourcegear Vault integration with VS.NET.

David
# Yves Reynhout said on 07 October, 2004 04:47 AM
I'm aware of the "Fritz Onion" and the "map vdirs before you open the solution" techniques. They do the job, but fundamentally it's a flaw in the way VS.NET handles this.
# David Boschmans said on 07 October, 2004 09:01 AM
You're right that it's a flaw, however the Sourcegear Vault integration with VS.NET works well!
# TrackBack said on 10 April, 2005 01:26 AM
^_^,Pretty Good!

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