Any individuals use CVS for solo projects? Anyone think this is a good idea, simply for tracking updates and future bug fixes and etc? I''ve actually never used it, and am setting it up just for experience as well, but I am curious if anybody uses it just to help track updates and changes in a project where multiple programmers is not an issue. The Tyr project is here.

We use PerForce where I work. It is both a version control system and a configuration system. As Nyryren says the primariy reason to use it is to avoid problems with different people modifying the same files and keeping all up to date.

However, I have become so accustomed to it that I think I would use it for solo projects too. It has a number of advantages in this regard:
1. It maintains a history of files so you can easy track down what caused the problem if a bug suddenly appear.
2. You can get a snapshot of the system as it was at a given time. That was you can always retrieve a running version of the system even when you have pulled stuff apart to fix something.
3. You can make temporary develop branched where you try things out without modifying the main develop branch. And when the changes are ready you merge it with the main changes. Neat when you experiment with things that you want to compare to the original in some way (e.g. performance)
4. You can put all your other assets into the system too, so the all this even applies to graphics - so if you arejust one programmer and one artist you get the benefits of shared files. (This is neccesary to do a full snapshot of a running system as pointed out in point 2.)

I don''t know if CVS can do all this - but I know SourceSafe cannot. (SourceSafe can only do 1. and a very limited part of point 3.)

Jacob Marner, M.Sc.
Console Programmer, Deadline Games

Thanx for the replies.

I am primarily interested with 1 and 2 felonious. 4 is really cool, I hadn;t thought of that, but as its just files, I can see how that would work with CVS as well. This would also be great for down the road, programmer + artist, as said.

As for 3, this is exactly the kind of feedback I wanted. I''ve never heard of this, and that is really cool that it is set up through the program. I''ll check out PerForce later tonight. What is the license/cost? I''ll google it in a few minutes anyway, jsut curious.

Any other interesting benefits from source control that might make it beneficial for an individual to run?

The Tyr project is here.

Grrrreat. Thats what I wanted to use, so thats what I''ll do. Ty Sneftel.

The Tyr project is here.

quote:Original post by Dean Harding
SourceSafe can do all four of those things...

No it cannot. If have used both system quite a bit at work.

In source safe rolling back and taking snapshots of old files can only happen for one file at a time. You cannot give one command and get a snapshot of the whole system unless you where so foresigted to actual put at label at that specific point of time. In Perforce you just give it a time and date and get the whole system (or a subset if you want to).

In source safe the performance will go down to a drag if you add graphic assets too. It will get so slow you regretted doing it. I tried. Many users of source safe, supplement it with ALien Brain from NxN for this exact reason (although the version of ALien Brain we tried here didn't scale well, but NxN claim to have fixed that issue in the meantime)

Temporary branches in source safe does not work very well. It is quite complicated to make a brnach and then get a copy of that in another working directory - and then work on both at the same time. When you do a branch in perforce you can have group of people work on that branch as nothing had happened and then later they can merge together as nothing had happened. SOurce safe is very good at the actual merging of cpp files though - better than perforce.

Jacob Marner, M.Sc.
Console Programmer, Deadline Games

[edited by - felonius on October 22, 2002 12:58:41 PM]