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

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

VSS is old and outdated. The database gets corrupted way too often. There's a reason why MS built TFS too.

SVN is very popular (meaning lots of community support, meaning free support), there are many tools that hook to it (CruiseControl for Continuous Integration for example) and it's rather simple to use.

You have to consider there's a learning curve if you are already using VSS and that's something that you have to weigh in your research. If the other developers haven't used SVN (or CVS) then it could be costly, although all you need is one person who really gets to know the system and then coach the rest.

We did change from VSS to SVN 4 years ago and we haven't looked back since.

Answer 4

I find merging files with VSS to be very cumbersome, but it's great with SVN. Also, and I don't have any evidence of this, but SVN seems faster.