The company I work for recently started using TFS 2010 for version control and we have had some active discussions on establishing a check-out policy. Currently, we have Multiple Check-Outs enabled. This policy is enabled because, as a small dev team, we can always get together to discuss merge conflicts when they arise at check-in time. One thing we didn’t reach a consensus on was getting the latest on check-out. Should we also enforce the “Enable get latest on check-out” policy? Does it go a long way in helping to ensure that we aren’t editing out-of-date code?
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It is better to leave it disabled because each user can enable this option locally in Visual Studio according to their preferred way of working by modifying their settings in Visual Studio (Tools Menu -> Options -> Source Control -> Visual Studio Team Foundation Server).
Most of the teams that enable this option are coming from a system that already behaved this way (Visual Source Safe, mostly) because they are comfortable working that way already.
I find most people want to explicitly control when their files are getting updated so others’ changes don’t unexpectedly mess up their flow when they might not be ready for the latest changes their team members had checked in ahead of them.
However, every team working with shared checkouts on an active project should be trained and aware that it is good practice to get the latest changes regularly, as it will reduce the amount of conflicts and confusion when they finally want to check in their work.
Consider getting the latest version of the code: