Monday, March 12, 2012

Visual SourceSafe

I'm looking for some knowledge/advice onVisual SourceSafe and the different editions of Visual Studio. How valuable is SourceSafe? Our company will have 2 to 4 VB.net programmers developing/maintaining some Web applications. We heard this is a nice feature.
We currently have Visual Studio.NET 2003 using the Professional Special edition. It looks like we can purchase SourceSafe for approx $1000 to install with Professional edition. But if we purchase the 'Enterprise Developer' edition of VS (for approx $2,000), Visual SourceSafe comes alongwith. Besides SourceSafe, Enterprise Developer edition had the following extra features:
Application Center Test
Enterprise Templates and Frameworks
Microsoft connected reference applications
Visual Studio Analyzer
I don't know much about these features. Do you think they are valuable enough to pay the extra $1,000 for Enterprise Developer?
Any knowledge on the subject would be appreciated. Thanks.

Based on your description, I would say that Visual Source Safe (VSS) is absolutely _vital_ for your group. I know that the groups I've led where I work wouldn't dream of tackling a project without it. It makes so, so many things possible, or simpler when working with a small dev team. Basically, it is a source code control utility, but it also facilitates exactly the scenario you describe -- a group working on common applications.
MSDN has several articles that describe how to set it up for different environments. Look those over and they should give you a good idea of the capabilities.
Thanks for your reply. Now that I got your attention - Do you think the jump fromProfessional toEnterprise Developer edition is worth the money?

Depends so much on what you are doing. To be frank, as an MVP, I get the Enterprise Edition free, so I haven't ever had to consider the tradeoffs. I've always been one who figures that a developer can never have to many toys, though.

Doesn't the enterprise edition also add database tools (server explorer, query designers, etc?) If so, then the answer is a resounding YES, by all means, get it.

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