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Asked: 2026-05-10T13:27:50+00:00

I’ve been programming for 10+ years now for the same employer and only source

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I’ve been programming for 10+ years now for the same employer and only source code control we’ve ever used is VSS. (Sorry – That’s what they had when I started). There’s only ever been a few of us; two right now and we usually work alone, so VSS has worked ok for us. So, I have two questions: 1) Should we switch to something else like subversion, git, TFS, etc what exactly and why (please)? 2) Am I beyond all hope and destined to eternal damnation because VSS has corrupted me (as Jeff says) ?

Wow – thanks for all the great responses!

It sounds like I should clearify a few things. We are a MS shop (Gold parntner) and we mostly do VB, ASP.NET, SQL Server, sharepoint & Biztalk work. I have CS degree so I’ve done x86 assembly C, C++ on DEC Unix and Slackware Linux in a ‘time out of mind’ …

My concern with VSS is that now I’m working over a VPN a lot more and VSS’s performance sux and I’m afraid that our 10+ y/o version 5 VSS database is going to get hoosed… There’s the LAN service that’s supposed to speed things up, but Ive never used it and I’m not sure it helps with corruption – has anyone used the VSS LAN service? (new with VSS 2005)

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  1. I’d probably go with Subversion, if I were you. I’m a total Git fanatic at this point, but Subversion certainly has some advantages:

    • simplicity
    • abundance of interoperable tools
    • active and supportive community
    • portable
    • Has really nice Windows shell integration
    • integrates with visual studio (I think – but surely through a third party)

    Git has many, many other advantages, but the above tend to be the ones people care about when asking general questions like the above.

    Edit: the company I now work for is using VisualSVN server, which is free. It makes setting up a Subversion repository on a Windows server stupid simple, and on the client we’re using TortoiseSVN (for shell integration) and AnkhSVN for Visual Studio support. It’s quite good, and should be fairly easy for even VSS users to pick up.

    Latter-day Edit: So….nearly eight years later, I would never recommend Subversion to anyone for any reason. I don’t really recant, per se, because I think my advice was valid at the time. However, in 2016, Subversion retains almost none of the advantages it used to have over Git. The tooling for Git is superior to (and much more diverse) what it once was, and in particular, there’s GitHub and other good Git hosting providers (BitBucket, Beanstalk, Visual Studio Online, just off the top of my head). Visual Studio now has Git support out-of-the-box, and it’s actually pretty good. There are even PowerShell modules to give a more native Windows experience to denizens of the console. Git is even easier to set up and use than Subversion and doesn’t require a server component. Git has become as ubiquitous as any single tool can be, and you really would only be cheating yourself to not use it (unless you just really want to use something not-Git). Don’t misunderstand – this isn’t me hating on Subversion, but rather me recognizing that it’s a tool from another time, rather like a straight razor for shaving.

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