macOS SourceControl OSX/XP (Extremely simple option)?

[Earendil]

To start off, I'll note that I did not fail to see the helpful wiki on development apps. I'm currently downloading the OSX Subversion client as I write.

Problem description:
Brother and I, both currently working on a CS degree, want to write a little game with our free summer hours. Because we have different blocks of free time, we won't be working on the code at the same time and place. This is especially true if the project carries over into the school year.

But research into the topic is losing me in a sea of corporate level applications

Is there (and perhaps subversion is the answer) a brain dead simple easy to use source control application out there that would help us:
A: Track files changed
B: What those changes are (in a comparison manner).
C: Free/Opensource

Also, we are (shamefully) doing the initial dev work in XP using VS2005. We want our app to be cross platform and we are more familiar with VS. Since many of you Moon Light as developers for "the other" platform (whichever that may be) can anyone answer the question above, but for a windows based app?

Thanks everyone!

~Tyler

(side note)
I use Perforce and BeyondCompare at work.
However, I'm teaching my younger brother a bit (advanced VS use and C#), and we are both going to have to learn the XCode IDE. I don't want to add another complicated source control program to the mix. However if need be, I could learn it.

 

[iShater]

Perforce has a Mac server and client. I haven't used them (yet), but you might be familiar enough with Perforce that it would be easy for you to get up and running on it.

I understand that they support 2 users for free before you have to buy a license.

There was another post a few weeks ago about using a new subversion client with an online repository, but I don't recall what the title was.

 

[yeroen]

Either cvs or svn will provide everything you need

I use both Tkcvs (free) and Clearcase (very much not free) on Linux at work. If you're familiar with a full-on proprietary source-code revision control software, getting up to speed with cvs/svn or any of their GUI front-ends is a snap.

 

[Krevnik]

I vote for SVN as well. I run it on a single box, and have access to it from Windows and OS X. Setup may be a bit tricky if you do it yourself, though.

Once setup, it is fairly simple to use, integrates into XCode, and has a Visual Studio plugin as well.

 

[Earendil]

Thanks for the help so far guys!

Sure enough, straight from the perforce website:
Licensing
You may use software downloaded from Perforce for any purpose you want and for as long as you like, provided no modifications are made to the software.

The Perforce Server supports only two users and five client workspaces unless used with a Perforce License.

If I can get Perforce to integrate as well as it is here at work (system was handed to be fully setup) than it should be unobtrusive enough to at least appear simple.

Yeroen, is Tkcvs on the simple(r) side of things?

My problem is that if my brother can't use it, or spends days learning it, than we've defeated the purpose of having one (time saving) in the first place.

I'll download these though and see where they get me tonight.
I'll report back tomorrow, though more advice and recommendations in the mean time would be fine

 

[yeroen]

Yeroen, is Tkcvs on the simple(r) side of things?

TkCVS/TkSVN is simple, and is available for Windows/OS X/Linux.

There are doubtless other cvs/svn GUI clients, but Tk* is what I'm familiar with.

I've never used Perforce, but (Tk)cvs is orders of magnitude simpler than Clearcase, say.

 

[Earendil]

So I went hunting for TkSVN. What I found is that one needs to piece together a bunch of different apps from all across the internet?
I know we programmers sometimes don't like neat packages, but in this case I'd settle for one
I'm getting most of my info from here.
http://www.twobarleycorns.net/tkcvs.html

I think I'm starting to understand that SVN/CVS are command line base's and others have wrapped them in GUI's. Is there a standard GUI or a favored one?

 

[yeroen]

What about a browser based solution? I believe there are Firefox plugins for accessing svn repositories.

 

[kalimba]

If you decide to opt for the Perforce solution, I'd be curious to know how it goes. My team at work uses Perforce, and I'm using it at home on my PC (single user only, so it's legit), but I've yet to install it on my Mac.

I'm wondering about the logistics of certain things, like where does the repository have to live? On a network share? What if the users are in remote locations? etc.

 

[HiRez]

What about a browser based solution? I believe there are Firefox plugins for accessing svn repositories.

There's a product called VersionShelf that looks pretty cool, I've been thinking of trying it out. It's neither free nor open source, but it is web based and has a plan starting at $6.95/mo. that seems like it would work for small projects. That's just a couple mixed drinks at your coffee house or bar, doesn't seem too unreasonable. I've dabbled in a few version control systems in the past, but I found setting them up and maintaining them to be something of a PITA, enough so that I've gone back to just making occasional .zip archives and snapshots of my Xcode projects. Not ideal and it'll probably bite me some day.

 

[NeXTCube]

Big Subversion fan myself; I've used it on Windows and Linux. The bad news is that it takes some effort to set it up. I'm lucky at work now - we have a guy who takes care of all that stuff for us - but at my last job I was the "source control guy" (they had no source control system when I got there) and set up SVN + Bugzilla + Apache on Windows SBS2003. It was a good day's worth of work to get everything set up with proper permissions (I used mod_sspi and created Windows user groups for each project and assigned project permissions that way) and whatnot. If you just run the lone Subversion server, as opposed to integrating it with Apache, it's a lot easier to set up. Something to keep in mind is that you'll probably want a VPN to allow others remote access to your repository.

We used TortoiseSVN as the Subversion client on Windows and it worked really well.

I've recently started using .NET at work and am amazed at how productive it is. I'd have had no appreciation for how much work it saves you if I hadn't spent the last 12 years doing things "the hard way"! And actually, Mono offers a path to cross-platform land from .NET...

 

[laprej]

I also use svn. I use the svn browser that comes with Xcode. But that doesn't support everything through the GUI front-end (e.g. branching). So it still helps to learn the command-line way to do things. But anyway, TkCVS is available under fink as well, so I would imagine that would take care of all your packages. Not really sure of a comparable system on the Windows end but it probably wouldn't be too much of a PITA. Either way, I highly recommend learning the command-line interface first anyway.

 

[Catfish_Man]

I would recommend either svn or bzr. svn is somewhat faster and more popular, bzr is simpler to set up repositories and has nice things like offline operation and better merging.

 

[Guiyon]

For all my work I use SVN with the SmartSVN front-end. The professional version does cost but the Foundation (very basic) is free. It was also developed using Java so they offer it for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. If you want an alternate method of accessing the repository there is TortoiseSVN for Windows and SCPlugin for Mac OS X; these add a contextual menu to Explorer and Finder, respectively.

 

[mamcx]

Subversion is great.

I setup subversion, trac 6 others before but currently I run everything on http://www.assembla.com/

Have a VERY good free version.

The best? You don't need setup anything. You have a utomatic offsite backup for free. You have tickets, milestones and everything for do scrumb or xp or anything like.

I think this package or any other that give free hosted subversion is the best for start.

 

[iShater]

I am curious on what the OP ended up using. Especially if you setup a local repository, as I am not interested in on-line ones.

Thanks.

 

[Earendil]

I'm curious what I end up with too

I failed at getting both Subversion and Perforce up and running.

Though I think this is because there is a miss match in the assumed level of knowledge that these install documents have, and my actual own level of knowledge.

Also, I'm doing the install on a windows (XP) machine, because that is currently where the project resides. Perhaps each of these applications would be easier on an OSX side considering the OS and my own level of knowledge on OSX installs and all possible ways/problems associated with it.

I'm going to get some guys at work to help me over the weekend set up Subversion. I'll report back after that. If I don't, call me out on it and I'll be sure to respond

 

[Cromulent]

This is the document that got me up and running with SVN:

Installing a secure Subversion server on Leopard.

 

[HiRez]

This is the document that got me up and running with SVN:

Installing a secure Subversion server on Leopard.

I have no doubt this is easier than previously, but man, that's why I don't use a source control system, just such a pain to set up if you don't spend all day in a CLE, not to mention maintaining or troubleshooting it. Plus, you have to duplicate a lot of that stuff for each machine you want to use it with.

What is the absolute easiest, fastest, most idiot-proof way of doing source control where I can have a remote repository accessible from any machine, but also work locally if I choose? I actually feel somewhat comfortable on a command line, but I avoid it unless I can't (for example, I'll always edit files in TextWrangler or TextMate instead of vi or nano). So ideally I'd like to find a solution that does not involve opening up Terminal, and works directly through Xcode if that's possible. Any suggestions?

 

[Cromulent]

Perforce, but it is not free. In fact it is rather expensive. Setting up an SVN server should only take an hour or so on your server, all other machines just connect to that. The best approach would be to run Linux / OpenBSD on an old dirt cheap PC and use it as an SVN server and file server.