Version Control

[Replicant]

Hey guys I am looking for recommendations for a good, easy to use and cheap (pref. free) version control software to use.

Its only really for me and personal project work so doesnt need to be too complex.

[Johnmcl7]

I'd recommend having a look at Perforce as it sounds like it might be suitable for your use - it's a fairly expensive piece of software however their evaluation version is free with the limitation of just two users. If it's only you that's going to be using it then it may be worth a look.

It may be overkill for what you're after however I found it easy to administrate and use, you have the option of a graphical interface or commandline if you're wanting to script anything with it plus it works well over SSH.

You're probably aware of Microsoft Visual Sourcesafe, although it's not free I did wonder if it's one you could pick up cheap with the student subscription you've mentioned previously. It's simple to set up as it doesn't actually have a server component, the client drives everything from basically a set of files which means you simply tell the administrate program where you want the database and that's it pretty much.

John

[kingosticks]

svn of course! and tortoiseSVN if you want a nice client gui under windows. its free and it works just great. you can also get free svn hosting at codespaces.com (using the trial which doesnt seem to run out) and use of their really good project management tool (similar to trac) - although more useful for projects with more than one developer, its still handy.

[Replicant]

Yeah was wondering about subversion so will give tortoise a try for now and see how it goes. Will probably give Perforce a test as well John.

Thanks guys.

[Advocate]

another vote for svn or git

[kingosticks]

Ive randomly come across git before. What are the advantages of it over svn?

[Advocate]

To be honest there are about the same amount of pros and cons for each so I would base it on personal preference/experience when choosing which one to go for. There is a brief comparison here:

http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSvnComparsion

We use subversion at work but loads of the projects that I have to follow prefer using git repos which always seem to be maintained and easier to navigate than svn, but that is more likely to be down to the developers using those repos rather than the software.

[kingosticks]

Ah right. That's what I had gathered about git too. And that it was better at merging branches or something.

Hope you find one of these that meets your needs. I was a bit confused at first with TortoiseSVN when looking to run the GUI, but it instead works as a bunch of added menu options in the context menu when you right-click on a file or folder in Windows Explorer. Be sure to restart Windows after installing it to get the additional icon decorations that show version info.