How to Set up a Source Control on Windows without spending a dime.
by Jason Clark on December 28, 2004 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Viewing the history of files
CVS keeps track of every change to a file. These changes, including who made them and when they were made, can be very useful when you run into issues or have questions about a change that was made. Tortoise allows you to view the history of a file by right clicking on the file and selecting "History" under CVS. You will be prompted with a history of the file along with any comments for each change.
ViewCVS
In a team-based environment, being able to view changes on files and compare versions of files can be incredibly useful. ViewCVS is a web-based application that runs on either UNIX or Windows and allows developers to use a browser to view the CVS source tree. You can obtain the windows port of ViewCVS here, and the instructions for installing ViewCVS on windows are located here. Once installed, you should see a listing of your modules when you navigate to viewcvs.cgi.
You can then drill down on the module and get a listing of the files in your module. ViewCVS will list the file, its version, age, and last comment. If you click on the file, ViewCVS will list all the revisions to that file, when they were made, by whom, and the comment associated with each change. The most useful feature in ViewCVS is [select for diff]. By doing this, you can compare versions of the selected file and see what changes were made (see below).
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ncage - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
ooops looks like i didn't read far enough..there are plugins for the ide. I will have to use it to see if the integration is as nice as it is with sourcesafe.ncage - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Least you guys aren't still using source safe ;). SourceSafe really sucks...its the access DB of the version control world. At work we have had so much trouble with sourcesafe corruption. We have the sourcesafe analyze utility running every night but if there is on developer that leaves sourcesafe open or VB6 with the sourcesafe add-in..the analyze will fail. The only thing nice about source safe is the IDE integration..you would have to build this for the free alternatives (if not already available) which would suck. Anyways, btw, i have used starteam and it ROCKS but very expensive.Stefpet - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
SVN does not require Apache if you use svnserve. If you use svnserve you simply run it as a service similar to CVSNT.Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
One drawback to Subversion is the Apache dependancy. There is no IIS support, at least last time I looked. It requires Apache or you have to setup a Synserve for remote access. From the time I spent with Subversion, CVSNT was much easier to setup and get going quickly.Just an FYI.
Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
I've listed some of the other free alternatives, and some commercial alternatives.Yes, CVS lacks in some areas, but for the average user CVS is more than sufficient.
Damien - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
CVS has many well known problems and is missing some key features. Being able to rename files/directories in Subversion and recording that name change as part of the file history is amazingly useful.Perforce is good from the ease-of-use angle, but it is expensive for more than two people. For that reason I moved to Subversion at work, having previously used both Perforce and CVSNT for several months previously.
Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
CVS is still very widely used and works very well. Subversion is one of many alternatives, we discussed CVS. Subversions commands are very similar to CVS, so if you get your feet wet with CVS, Subversion should be a piece of cake.Stefpet - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
I would also like to recommend Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) instead of CVSNT. There is also a TortoiseSVN so you may use SVN exactly as described in this article.Perforce is also perfect if you need a good and easy to setup system for handle your own source-code. However, if you need more than 2 users than prepare to shell out loads of cash.
lysinewf - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Perforce! it's free for 2 users.Souka - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
Subversion? Do share......