CVS, PVCS, or Subversion with Flare?

[ksoltys]

I've just gotten Flare and want to set it up to integrate with a source control system. From talking with our developers, it looks like I can use either CVS or PVCS, and might be able to use Subversion, but I think that Subversion is a low-likelihood possibility.

According to the Flare docs, I will need to get a plug-in to set up the source control system with Flare. I saw one message referring to the TamTam plug-in. Are there others? (Open source or free would be best, if possible).

Does anyone have any advice as to whether CVS or PVCS would be better for use with Flare?

One of our developers suggested using Eclipse as a front-end to CVS, but I don't know if it would integrate with Flare.

Thanks
Keith

[KevinDAmery]

I seem to recall that some users have had some success with a plugin from Pushok for use with CVS, but I don't know the details (we're on VSS here).

[forfear]

We use TFS here.

[ksoltys]

I met with our release manager on Friday and it looks like our options are probably CVS with a plug-in, which on TBD, or possibly subversion. Apparently PVCS has issues with deleting files and renaming files or directories. Since our developers are using CVS, there's already a server set up.

I'm still trying to get more information, there's not a lot out there.

[KevinDAmery]

You could look into this:

http://www.pushok.com/soft_cvs.php

I haven't worked with it myself, but I remember seeing Doc Guy (aka Paul Pehrson) post a number of times about working with it and Flare. You may be able to find something by searching the forum.

[doc_guy]

I've used the PushOk plugin for SVN, not CVS. I don't know how similar the plugins are.

But yes, I can verify that PushOK's software does integrate with Flare. At least SVN does, so I assume CVS would as well.

[trent the thief]

I'm using TamTam with CVS. Flare works well with TamTam. I tested quite a bit before buying licenses. Flare and with TamTam/CVS works well.

The thing to remember for using any source control with flare is to make the source control ignore the Output and Analyzer directories, and Project/Users directory. Those are unique to the user and will cause conflicts if you source control them. They are all rebuilt as needed.

[kellyhouser]

How does one make source control ignore the output and analyzer folders?

[LTinker68]

I think most source control programs allow you to specify what you want to check in. So you just don't check those folders in. In other words, don't check in the entire parent project folder that contains everything (analyzer, content, output, project, .flprj file). Instead, individually check in the content folder, the child project folder, and the flprj file in the root of the project.

[trent the thief]

How does one make source control ignore the output and analyzer folders?

CVS uses a file called .cvsignore. For Flare you need two: One in the project's top directory and one in the <main project directory>/Project directory.

In the main directory of the project:

Analyzer
New\ Folder
Output


In the <main project directory>/Project directory:

Users
New\ Folder

So that's all you'd need for the .cvsignore file to have it ignore the stuff that causes problems. The TamTam plugin was USD$10 per seat with a discount seats increase.

I also use a program named Tortoise which integrates into my windows explorer. I don't use Flare's SCC tools. I like to keep them separate so if something breaks I know what to look at.

CVS also has a facility that the CVS administrator can use to ignore those paths at the server level.

AccuRev also has an ignore feature built into the GUI, if I remember correctly. It's also not a speed demon, but it's better than CVS. I tested Perforce and was happy enough with it. The company decided to go with AccuRev (thankfully, I work elsewhere now). VSS? I wouldn't use it if you will have a lot of traffics. It was designed for a low to medium user count and low file transfer activity. If you get 3-4 writer in there committing a couple hundred files at a pop it starts choking.

We're preparing to move to Mercurial. I sort of like it, but there are issues to work out there. First and foremost, prior to committing anything, you must tell it to update all of your files. That might not be an issue if you only have a few hundred and not many fingers in the pie. When you've got several thousand it becomes a tad cumbersome. So there's some administrative details to work out. I'm hoping that they decide they can manage a separate repository for each flare project. It'll be rough if we don't. I think we have about 25 medium to large sub-projects. Stuff liek that makes me glad I'm a writer and not an admin

[techwriter31]

We're preparing to move to Mercurial. I sort of like it, but there are issues to work out there.

Hi Trent - we're evaluating Mercurial Kiln. What have your experiences been like with Mercurial? Are there any gotchas?

Also, did you integrate it with Flare using the Microsoft SCC API?

Thanks!

[trent the thief]

We're preparing to move to Mercurial. I sort of like it, but there are issues to work out there.

Hi Trent - we're evaluating Mercurial Kiln. What have your experiences been like with Mercurial? Are there any gotchas?

Also, did you integrate it with Flare using the Microsoft SCC API?

Thanks!

Mercurial is a nightmare if you have multiple writers working on multiple projects. The way Mercurial worked was that it would not allow you to check in a sub-project, say one module of a help system with dozens of sub-projects without first fetching the entire workspace. I don't know if it was just the way the server was setup of if Mercurial is just that awkward to use. We've transitioned to Subversion. The developers weren't thrilled with it either. Our system has over 20000 java files divided into hundreds of modules. It was just too much of a headache to coordinate commits amongst 150 developers since a commit when you were fetching forced you to fetch files again.

Prior to that, we used CVS. We bought a plugin that allowed Flare to talk to CVS via MSCC. That to ran us into difficulties. We reach our source control servers via SSH. Any project we put into source control directly from Flare retained the username@ourdomain:cvs::filename which effective blocked any user but the person who initially bound the project from using it.

We are happy enough managing the commits and such manually. It's not that hard if you can use something like TortoiseSVN.

[wbrisett]

I've recently requested support for GIT, which in my experience is leagues better than CVS (which is no longer being actively supported), and Subversion. I haven't used the MS tools to any great length, so I'm not sure how a good a comparison I can make with that versioning SW I can make. But overall, GIT seems to be making some huge strides in the developer community.

Has anybody else thought about using GIT?

Wayne

[RamonS]

Yes, especially now that TFS supports Git as suppository.