Subversion Killing Features (most poweful features)

[foongkim]

Dear all, i am going to present to management to use Subversion.

I am just wondering is there any killing features that you can share with me so that i am able to convince my management to use this version control tool?

I know it's free, stable, reliable, able to do those normal version source code can do..

Just wondering is there any special 'shinning' features that i can share during the presentation?

Also, any shortfall that you have experience?

[JNiven]

Hi foongkim

Any time I run Subversion (as a server), I use Apache to do it. This brings much of the advantages of Apache to Subversion, like the wide range of authentication modules that Apache already has. However, the killer feature for me is being able to send people "Subversion" URLs ("http://example.com/svn/myproject/source/File.java") - users can browse files using their browser, paste links into a Subversion client to check out directories, etc.

How this works is Apache sends an XML representation of Subversion's response to the user, and the user's browser then uses a stylesheet to render this. You can modify the stylesheet to get quite amazing results - but, for me, this is just "icing" on an already fantastic "cake"

Using Apache with Subversion means it's easy for users to access a repository anywhere - they don't need to worry about firewalls blocking obscure ports, since Apache uses ports 80 and 443, which are very rarely blocked (they're the ports used for web servers - HTTP and HTTPS).

Cheers
John
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John Niven

[andyl]

Is the question what you can show them to convince them to select Subversion over another package, or to convince them to use Subversion instead of no version control at all?

IMO management should be the final step of approval when choosing a version control system; the developers should have more input into the decision than management, management should just be there to say "if it meets your needs and we find the licensing/budgeting acceptable, we approve you using it" and sign any checks & contracts that need to be signed. Management should not be deciding what software the developers use.

[foongkim]

Good questions guys...

If that is the case, i am interested to present this to other development team and trying to convinced them why we should go for Subversion and not other version control system.

So far i don't see any Subversion information that is consider s killer apps, especially on version control system.

thanks in advance

[andyl]

[foongkim]

I am evaluating the Subversion...

I am comparing with other version control system in the market like ClearCase, CVS and SourceSafe

[andyl]

There is no compelling reason to use CVS over SVN.

There is no valid reason to use MS Visual SourceSafe, period. It's terrible. I used to run it. Then I ran away from it, screaming. There are 3 kinds of VSS users/admins - those who have lost data to it, those who have lost data and don't realize it, and those who will lose data soon whether they realize it or not.

There are a lot of "Subversion vs. X" comparison articles, grids, etc. out there which you can find with some simple Google searches. Just make sure they've been written recently; many haven't been updated in a long time, and omit features which have been implemented in the last 2-3 years.

[JNiven]

I'd agree that you shouldn't bother with CVS or VSS - CVS has been effectively replaced (with Subversion...), and likewise for VSS (with Team Foundation Server (?, IIRC)).

ClearCase is contemporary and worth a look (I hated it, but I never really got to grips with it to the same level I have with Subversion). You should also take a look at Perforce.

Flying the open-source flag, you should also look at Bazaar, Mercurial and Git - they're all *distributed* version control systems, which are sometimes seen as being more modern compared to a centralised system like Subversion.

Personally, since the latter three all integrate nicely with Subversion, my preference would be for Subversion + whatever DVCS tools users wanted to use. If I had a sizeable budget I'd definitely consider ClearCase or Perforce, but sizeable budgets are thin on the ground right now

Cheers
John

PS. I've definitely forgotten a few proprietary VCSs, apart from ClearCase and Perforce.
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John Niven

[foongkim]

thanks guy.. .appreciate your feedbacks

[dextrous]

there was a thread in mailing list long time back discussing similar things i traced down the thread
http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=1065&dsMessageId=394139

Hope that helps you in some way.
_________________
Regards,
Vishwajeet Singh
http://bootstraptoday.com
http://www.singhvishwajeet.com/

[foongkim]

tq...