Thread: Source Control

I am trying to set up a source control system. I have a development site set up in source control. I have a copy of the site on a local machine and checkout files to work on them locally. I do a check-in to a source control database on the development server. Changed files are automatically put into the dev site on check-in. Changes in files like templates that are not part of the source code are immediately seen on the dev site.

I may have only 1 developer working or might have several coding. If I do a build of the source I do it on my local machine. I am not sure what the best practice would be to get a new build to the server. Can anyone make any suggestions?

Hi

I would suggest using just the one machine to upload changes, get the latet version from your repositry and recompile.

There are many source control products that you can choose from, but the most popular that I've found is Subversion (aka SVN). There are different ways to use subversion, but the easiest is to use a centralized server using VisualSVN Server (http://www.visualsvn.com/server/) , it's easy to use and it's free.

Then to upload, commit, and download projects, you would use a svn client such as TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads), also free.

If you are new to Subverison, this is an excellent how to: http://www.dev102.com/2008/10/07/how...rsion-control/

, Subversion makes it easy!

We use SourceGear Fortress internally. Just a small plug for them. Works reasonably well, performance ok for distributed devs, now that they got some earlier version release hiccups out of their system (like all software companies)

I'm using SourceGear Fortress too. My original question was about build management best practices. What do the folks at ASPDNSF use when they need to do a build? Are the builds done on a central server for example? How do people contribute code to the build? Is it automated by some other piece of software?

We have a centralized fortress server yes. Devs can pull/edit/update that from anywhere worldwide if needed. Connection speeds differ of course, but it all works.

Ok, you have me curious about subversion.

So to set this up properly I would install VisualSVN Server on a server. I would then install the VisualSVN plugin into Visual Studio. The plugin would be configured to point at the VisualSVN server and my code would checked out/in to that server.

I come from a Java developer background so I am familiar with CVS and ClearCase. I assume the fundamentals are the same?

Lastly, coming from a java background, is there a way in C# to do a build as opposed to doing it in the IDE? I mean in java I use ant to build the app and bundle it in an ear. Is there anything similiar to that at all in .NET? It just would be nice to have a "release" bundled up and deployed and keep history. Say changes go in and there is a critical issue discovered, I want to roll back to my previous version.

Ok, talking out loud there Any tips greatly appreciated.

.NET has a couple options for building projects and solutions outside of Visual Studio. The first is MSBuild, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0k6kkbsd.aspx, which is what Visual Studio uses under the hood. The other option is NAnt, http://nant.sourceforge.net/. This is the .Net version of Ant and the one you'll probably be more familiar with.