VSS is fine for a team of around 5-10 developers. Beyond that I would not
recommend it at all. It does not scale well. Currently VSS uses file
sharing as it's means of communicating with the database. I'm sure you know
the drawbacks of that verses a more robust protocol. Also the database
format is proprietary. It is essentially a linked list of linked lists of
linked lists... etc. When a link is broken, sometimes Microsoft's repair
utility can fix it, sometime it can't. When it can't, depending on how high
up the link is, you could be in real trouble.
CVS uses TCP/IP as its communication protocol. It uses the server's OS file
system as the database format (the top level format that is).
I have seen a VSS database that started out supporting 15 developers. By
the time it was abandoned the organization had about 65 developers. It
would frequently become corrupt and the repair utility could run for over 24
hours sometimes looking for that lost link that can't be found since a
network error caused the file to be trashed on a checkin or something.
Avoid VSS at all cost if you have over 10 users. Avoid VSS if your users
are not all at the same location. Avoid VSS for mission critical projects.
Other than that it has a decent GUI and is considered easier to use by some.
I hope this helps.
- Doug
on 6/26/00 12:58 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> Can anyone point me to some info that gives some facts on the pros and cons
> regarding
> deciding between VSS (Visual Source Safe) and CVS?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Bruce
>
