What are your thoughts on Visual SourceSafe? [closed]

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance. 开发者_JAVA百科 Closed 12 years ago.

I am considering getting VSS and was wondering what were people's thoughts on it in particular?

---

It's well-known to corrupt data. There are many better alternatives. If you need to match the feature-set and GUI, check out Vault from SourceGear. Free alternatives are numerous --- from the ubiquitous svn to the more modern (distributed) git, mercurial, etc.

Also, TFS is the MS replacement -- if you want MS tools, at least use TFS.

---

Jeff Atwood has a nice post: Anything But SourceSafe

There is no excuse for using VSS when there are other solutions such as SVN, Git and Mercurial which are better both in terms of reliability and use more modern approach then VSS.

---

My thoughts:

AHHHHHHHHHRHRHRHGGGEHAGTJH@#$@!&#&$!&@#@!@#%^@#$%

No. Seriously.

Before I knew how evil it was (newbie dev), I used it. Then, it corrupted an entire project I was working on. What a pile of garbage.

Use Subversion, Git, or Mercurial...for your own sanity.

---

Microsoft is pushing Team Foundation Server (TFS) as a replacement for VSS. VSS does offer the simplicity of a file based system, but you will spend a good amount of time repairing the database every so often. TFS is a much more reliable server based system. Visual Studio 2010 comes with a client license and a up to 5 person server license of TFS. You are better off putting your money there.

TFS Costs.

Because the question is a license/price issue, you can call 1-800-426-9400, Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. (Pacific Time) to speak directly to a Microsoft licensing specialist, and you can get more detail information from there.

---

Use TFS, Perforce, or maybe git.

Even if SourceSafe wasn't extremely dangerous to use (corruption, mentioned already)... just having file versions for source control really sucks. It's almost unbelievable that this type of source control is still widely used.

You want changeset or task-based source control. You'll want to easily know what files went into a specific change... not just a bunch of independently incrementing file numbers.

Perforce is VERY fast, and I'm very happy with it.

I use TFS for one major client, and it's been pretty good too. At the time I set up Perforce, TFS required a Server OS and license for that somewhere. I didn't want to have to set up yet another VM, so I went with Perforce.

I'd still easily choose Perforce today, though. That's mostly because I work with multiple platforms. As the main Perforce GUI client uses Qt, it looks and works the same on any OS.

---

VSS might be the right answer for some situations (e.g.: small group of devs using visual studio, not generally doing concurrent dev, fault tolerant env. (back-ups), etc.). I think the more important question is how your version control fits into your overall dev & release process. VSS and git are conceptually very different things in some very important ways and how your SDLC works is an important aspect of choosing a control system.