Under Control

I've been working on the Remote Speakers output plug-in for a couple months now and there have been quite a number of changes. However, up to this point I have just been taking daily snapshots of the code base into zip files (archaic...I know!). This has left a number of changes intermixed and has made it less-than-possible to back out of anything with ease. I decided it was time to put my code into a source control repository. I've use Microsoft Visual SourceSafe in the past, but am annoyed by M$'s lack of attention to the product. It is seriously stuck in the late 80s. I could go an an "I hate VSS" rant, but I'll lay off for now. Come to work and watch my expression when I am told a mildly complex change needs to be backed out of a release if you are interested to know how I feel about SourceSafe.

Anyways, I took advantage of my time at the JavaOne conference and talked to a couple vendors of source control tools. And the one that really impressed me was Perforce. It is commercial software, however it can be used for free with certain restrictions. Perforce has the standard set of source control tool features, of course; but what really piqued my interest is: 1) support for change sets—VSS is pitiful in this area and 2) a graphical view of file history—you can see at a glance where branches, merges, renames, etc. occurred in a file's history. No more constructing a mental picture of a files history from a list—Perforce provides the picture complete with pan and zoom.

I downloaded Perforce and populated the repository with all my daily snapshots one fine Sunday. The viewer initially took some getting used to; it doesn't do things quite the same as VSS or CVS. But once I got the hang of it, I was immediately empowered. Making changes for a release can be done with far greater confidence. I can now make multiple changes at once and keep them separated with ease. And working with change sets is a dream come true for a VSS user. Thank you Perforce development team! Send me your change requests—I am ready to handle them with much greater speed. Now if I could only get Perforce installed at work...