Sourcesafe WTF



  • Yeah, TRWTF is that we're using Visual Sourcesafe and not CVS/SVN/whatever-your-favorite-is.

    So I got to work this morning and decided to write the documentation related to the two dialogs I had coded up on Tuesday (I only work tuesday-thursday right now, silly school).  I grab the latest source code from sourcesafe, compile, and lo and behold the dialogs I spent three hours on on Tuesday simply don't exist.  That is to say, the button that brings them up was still there, but nothing happened when it was clicked.

    I opened up the file containing that dialog code and it's completely gone... vanished.  There is no evidence that the dialog code ever existed.  Not willing to give up, I checked the revision history - and it didn't show a checkin on that file in the last several weeks.  Two other guys apparently had the same issue yesterday.

    The WTF is that Sourcesafe saved the changes I made to the resources file (the dialogs) but not the source code (the code behind the dialogs).

    I must say that it integrates very well with VS2k5, but if there were a working CVS or SVN plugin for Visual Studio I'd try to get the company to switch...



  • @Heron said:

    The WTF is that Sourcesafe saved the changes I made to the resources file (the dialogs) but not the source code (the code behind the dialogs).
     

    Obviously this is a case where it would be SSDS to the rescue. Single files über alles! 



  • Yes, I agree VSS is a big WTF.

    Here we recently started using a product called SourceOffSite wich wraps around a standard VSS database and I like the UI a little better.  The remote performance improvement is another bonus.  I also like their diff tool, DiffMerge.



  • My biggest WTF with Source Safe came the other week when I was trying to break into a repository for which I did not have a password to. (A WTF in itself with a 3rd party app that overlays over the top of VSS, but they don't give you access to the raw data stored in VSS).

    After 5 seconds of googling I found the following way to break in if you know an admin level account in VSS:

    1/ Create a windows account with local admin rights that is the same name as the VSS admin account you want to break into


    2/ Log into windows with said account


    3/ Open up VSS


    4/ VSS looks at your windows account and says "Hey - you have an admin level windows account that matches the name of an admin level VSS account - So even though you don't know the password for the VSS account, I am going to give you full access to the VSS repository".



    Now that is a WTF!



  • SVN integration into VS2005 should be no big deal, especially if you use TortoiseSVN. I regularly use this: http://garrys-brain.blogspot.com/2006/11/visual-studio-2005-and-tortoisesvn.htm

    We even have SVN integrated with VS2003, using external tools wired up to use the TortoiseSVN command line interface. Those external tools can be placed on the toolbar, and even given a custom icon to match TortoiseSVN if you like.




  • You could try AnkSVN. I use it on my home machine, and it integrates with VS2005 quite well (usage is only slightly different from SourceSafe). It's not technically a source control plugin - it's just a plain Visual Studio add-in. As such, I've heard it doesn't work with VS2008 yet.

    And SourceSafe isn't too bad, as long as you're the sole developer regularly using a given repository. I'm the entire development team where I work, so I haven't had the "opportunity" to see it fail spectacularly in a multiuser environment. :)



  • My biggest issue with VSS is not the multiuser capabilities but the lack of branch/merge functionality.  Really difficult to get around if you are doing some exploratory development.

    We have 4-5 devs in our VSS at any given time and it works fine.  I realize that's still small, but probably 60% of installs wont have more than 5 users.



  • Well theres an argument for you to bring to upper management:

    I spent all day Tuesday working on a code change. I checked it in and part of it is missing. This means that whatever work was done on Tuesday is now gone and I have to restart. GET SVN!!!! Its f-ing free! (considering that they need to maintain it!)

    Theres nothing like wasted time due to buggy repositories to get management off their ass. A big + is if production date is today. Then heads will roll damnit!

    --Dmitriy



  • We went to SVN over a year ago and never looked back. VSS is not very productive in large teams and can just be a source of bugs itself.  We quit using plugins too, just using TortioseSVN to commit it to the repository. This is actually good because you can develop a good practice of reviewing your diffs before committing everything, instead of just leaving it up to VS.



  • @Zor said:

    SVN integration into VS2005 should be no big deal, especially if you use TortoiseSVN.

    Thanks for that link. We use TortoiseSVN and C# Express here. I just did the Import and it worked great. Now I don't have to browse out to Explorer just to perform SVN actions. I e-mailed instructions out to the others.


Log in to reply