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Comment by codeulike

2 days ago

We used it. We knew no better. It was different then, you might not hear about alternatives unless you went looking for them. Source Safe was integrated with Visual Studio so was an obvious choice for small teams.

Get this; if you wanted to change a file you had to check it out. It was then locked and no-one else could change it. Files were literally read only on your machine unless you checked them out. The 'one at a time please' approach to Source Control (the other approach being 'lets figure out how to merge this later')

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codeulike

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rswail  2 days ago

Which is exactly how CVS (and its predecessors RCS and SCCS) worked.

They were file based revision control, not repository based.

SVN added folders like trunk/branches/tags that overlaid the file based versioning by basically creating copies of the files under each folder.

Which is why branch creation/merging was such a complicated process, because if any of the files didn't merge, you had a half merged branch source and a half merged branch destination that you had to roll back.

  • fanf2  2 days ago

    CVS was called the “concurrent version system” because it did not lock files on checkout. Nor did svn. Perforce does.

    • ack_complete  2 days ago

      Perforce does not lock files on checkout unless you have the file specifically configured to enforce exclusive locking in the file's metadata or depot typemap.

    • rswail  2 days ago

      True dat, my mistake. That was its major feature, from memory though it still used the same reversed diff file format?

  • umanwizard  2 days ago

    I am quite sure that you can edit files in an svn repo to your heart’s content regardless of whether anyone else is editing them on their machine at the same time.

    • masklinn  2 days ago

      Yep, svn has a lock feature but it is opt-in per file (possibly filetype?)

      A pretty good tradeoff, because you can set it on complex structured files (e.g. PSDs and the like) to avoid the ballache of getting a conflict in an unmergeable file but it does not block code edition.

      And importantly anyone can steal locks by default. So a colleague forgetting to unlock and going on holidays does not require finding a repo admin.

Disposal8433  2 days ago

The file lock was a fun feature when a developer forgot to unlock it and went on holidays. Don't forget the black hole feature that made files randomly disappear for no reason. It may have been the worst piece of software I have ever used.

pjc50  2 days ago

The lock approach is still used in IC design for some of the Cadence/Synopsis data files which are unmergable binaries. Not precisely sure of the details but I've heard it from other parts of the org.

  • malkia  2 days ago

    Similar in video game shops - lots of binary files, or even huge (non-editable by human) text ones.

  • dagw  2 days ago

    A lot of engineering is the same. You cannot diff and merge CAD files, so you lock them.

namdnay  2 days ago

I remember a big commercial SCM at the time that had this as an option, when you wanted to make sure you wouldn’t need to merge. Can’t remember what it was called, you could “sync to file system” a bit like dropbox and it required teams of full time admins to build releases and cut branches and stuff . Think it was bought by IBM?