What is the best source control system for a solo programmer using Visual Studio 08?

Question

I writing a C# App for a customer for the first time and I am not sure what to do about adopting a version control system.

My version control system is soley composed of making full copies of the source code every day so I never lose more than a day of work.

I would like to do something less primitive going forward. Which source control software is best for a one person team using Visual Studio 2008?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well there's SourceSafe which usually comes with Visual Studio. I haven't used it for nearly ten years now, and it was pretty limited. In a programming group of about half a dozen we were pushing the limits. Of course, you're only one person; and it has probably been improved.

In those days, Perforce was much better - but intended for larger groups and way out of your price range (or mine, now I'm an independent!)

Subversion (SVN) and the TortoiseSVN clients are what I currently use for intercontinental source control. Does what we need. It should work pretty well for one person.

Answer 2

I am partial to Sourcegear, well, because that is what I use :-). It is free for one developer and integrates well with Visual Studio.

Another good option is Subversion.

Answer 3

Chalk up one more for SVN. It is awesome.

You HAVE to use TortoiseSVN for the client. (Oh well there might be other clients) and for IDE integration I have used both AnkhSVN and VisualSVN. VisualSVN is MUCH better for IDE intergration IMO...but it is not free. (But it is cheap.) For me, If I could not use VisualSVN I would probably forego IDE integration altogether and just use Tortoise.

AS with the others, good for you for doing solo source control. I worked solo for 10 years without it and don't know how I managed.

Seth

Answer 4

SourceGear Vault is great and yes, it's still free for personal use.

Answer 5

Bazaar is a good option. Its simpler to install than Subversion, Perforce or CVS and no server component is required. Works equally well on Windows, Mac or *nix. I haven't used SourceGear but I believe it uses a similar client-server model to subversion. This will be debated but I find the commandline interface to be simpler than Git but maybe that's just me. There is no integration with VisualStudio but to be honest with the possible exception of AnkSvn I've yet to see anything that does that well. If you can deal with using the commandline every now and then there is nothing simpler.

Once Bazaar is installed - using it with your existing code is a simple as :

cd mycode              # base directory of your source tree 
bzr init .
bzr add *              # recursively adds your source tree
bzr commit -m "first commit ! "

And you're done. Then - assuming you had a file foo.c in that directory you could do :

bzr log foo.c
------------------------------------------------------------
revno: 1
committer: me<me@MYHOST>
branch nick: tmp2
timestamp: Wed 2009-01-21 16:59:55 +0900
message:
  first commit

Now edit your code as normal and whenever you are ready to commit a change run bzr commit again.

See the Tutorial page for a slightly more in depth introduction.

It also comes with some useful tools like bzr-svn that you can use to import your local Bazaar repo into Subversion repository while preserving full history. So my Employer uses Subversion but I use Bazaar on my local machine for small test apps and utility scripts. then if there is ever a need to add them to an official work repository then that is nice and easy.

Answer 6

I would use Perforce. It's free for individual projects.

Answer 7

Introducing SVN or GIT (or any other tool) into your workflow has its own overhead and sometimes benefits don't outweigh overheads.

Anyway, if you are already making full copies of the source code every day, you're already having source control.

If you're not sure whether you need professional source-control tool like SVN or GIT, you don't need it.

Answer 8

I'm not sure what the best one is but there are plenty of free ones to choose from.

Check out the ones listed on Wikipedia

On my projects I usually use Subversion. Its easy to set up and use.

I've used Visual Source Safe...but I've found Subversion to be much better...

I've heard good reports about Git...but since I've never used it I can't really give you a recommendation.

Ultimately its good to see that you want to use a VCS as it is definitely a recommended practice. I would argue that using any VCS is better than using no VCS.

But as for which one is the best? Well, probably only you can determine that based on your needs and level of experience. Consider the recommendations made by people on this site but physically try a few out yourself and make up your own mind.

Answer 9

I'm in a similar situation and have a staging server which has VisualSVN Server on it, and I use TortoiseSVN on my development machine.

I also use VisualSVN to get integration with Visual Studio, but you may not require that.

I'd also recommend committing more than once per day. Don't set yourself a minimum schedule, but try to commit after completing each piece of functionality or at what you deem a minor milestone in your day.

Answer 10

SVN is a great tool that integrates well with windows and VS. Download TourtisSVN. I use

http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/

As a VS plugin.

It's really easy to get started with SVN and it really helps; especally when you put it on a web server so that you can sync your code between all of your computers regardless of where you are.

Answer 11

I would go with Subversion, a local repository can be very easy setup with TortoiseSVN.

To have IDE integration for managing the most common actions I really recommend you AnhkSVN, a Subversion SourceControl Provider for Visual Studio.