VSS or SVN for a .Net Project? [closed]

Question

At work, one of the head managers asked me to research on what could be the benefits of changing the current source control server (Visual Source Safe) of my project to SVN.

I really don't have anything against SVN, actually I kind of dig it, but in my humble opinion, change to SVN will not bring any significant benefits to the project, and will force us to use some third-party tools to manage the source control from the Visual Studio (we develop using mostly Microsoft tools only).

So, as a first step in my research, I ask you: what could be the benefits of switching from VSS to SVN?

Answer 1

Almost Definitely SVN. SVN sports a different way of working (Copy-Modify-Merge instead of Lock-Modify-Unlock). It's a bit of a learning curve, but it's the way things have gone for several years now, so most devs will have to learn it at some time or other anyway. Lock-Modify-Unlock is way too much of a pain, and there are serious collaboration problems that it actually contributes to, which I'd be happy to explain if you're curious.

Seconding the comments about how bad VSS is as well. Here are various links that cover the topic:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000660.html

http://www.developsense.com/testing/VSSDefects.html

http://wadhome.org/svn_vs_vss.html

Edit: See also: Source Control - Lock vs. Merge?

Answer 2

Consider a more modern tool like Git, Mercurial or Darcs. There are plenty of advantages, I'll leave the googling as an exercise to the reader.

Answer 3

Another "definitely SVN" vote here. I was part of a migration team at a previous job. I can't tell you how nice it was to get rid of VSS.

• No more corrupt repositories
• Much better merging
• So much faster
• Cheap and easy branching
• No more exclusive locking
• Checkout the source to multiple locations really easily

I could go on, but the memories of the VSS shackles are too painful. Just say no.

Answer 4

SourceGear Vault is an excellent replacement for VSS. It started out being "VSS features but using a real database", and grew from there.

Answer 5

We use SVN where I work and with the right documentation, right client and tools it is a snap - so far it is highly reliable to work with. After having spent the past 10 years with VSS I can say I don't miss it a bit.

I like SVN so much I wrote a review of what I consider to be the most valuable clients (some are not) and additional tools. This is a new article so it is very timely: http://codertools.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/svn-subversion-clients-and-other-tools/

I would not hesitate to recommend SVN to anyone - GIT is next on my list to look at.. Hope this is helpful.

Answer 6

AnkhSVN 2.0 is really very good.

If you had Visual Studio integration as a requirement, I would have warned against SVN even a year ago, but that's changed in a big way. It's still not as good as, say, VS Team System, but it's much better than the old MSSCCI-based VSS integration. There's no reason not to use SVN with .NET.