RE: Subversion vs VSS

Jeffrey Allison wrote:
> VSS allows me to share files amongst projects. This is useful to us as we
> have a number of smallish projects that share some common code. So if
three
> products all need timer.c and I fix a bug in timer.c, all three projects
> benefit upon the next build. In Subversion the nearest thing to this I
can
> find is externals, but that would imply a blob of common files without the
> granularity that we have today. Am I missing anything here?

I don't think you're missing anything. You could ensure that everything you
want to share is in its own folder, and use externals in that fashion, but
that requires a level of "fitting the process to the tool" that may not be
available in your projects.

Alternatively, store the files separately, without the use of externals:
just
ensure that changes are tracked using other means. You could even have
a post-commit hook script that notices when one of these shared files is
updated and takes appropriate action: notify a human to review and merge the
changes, or copy/merge the changes to all required locations.

> Another smaller feature is the ability to refresh a directory of code with
> the latest from VSS. I simply say "get latest version" from VSS and I get
> updates to any stale files. I don't have to clear the directory out and
grab
> everything. This isn't a huge deal, but we do this on a pretty regular
basis
> so I think I'd get pushback if this went away.

You don't need to worry about pushback. Subversion calls this operation an
"update", and it is actually part of the normal workflow. Developers can
reasonably be expected to update their working copies before and after
making any change.

> Finally I'm a little underwhelmed by the Tortoise UI that I've been
playing
> with. It's simple and it works, but I think I'd like something a little
more
> powerful. Any suggestions for a Subversion GUI client for Windows?

I can't offer much here, but for discussion: what "more powerful" features
would you expect to see? I use TortoiseSVN for most things on Windows
machines, and find that it implements pretty much everything the commandline
client does.

There are other GUIs, though, and the Subversion project "Links" page
has a list of them:
<http://subversion.tigris.org/project_links.html#clients>

-- 
Robert Hunter
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