Re: Use an Addin to automatically add date/time stamp to each edited line of VB6 code?

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"Mark" <mark.tunnard.jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:96c3f2fa-f84b-4b56-82b3-c743f24e6bb8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You really would be better off with a version control system, as Ralph
recommends. Subversion is a free open source system that's very widely
used, Microsoft Visual Source Safe (as recommended by Ralph) is pretty
cheap these days - and hopefully the old bugs which corrupted the
archives are fixed now too :)

I too like Subversion, but not for the classic VB development platform. VSS
works hand and glove with VB, both as an external utility and a full
featured Add-On. Due to the peculiarities of how the VBIDE manages "source
files", Subversion can only be reliably used as an external utility.

[Note: these comments are aimed at VSS versions normally available with VS6
and below and for its use with the classic VBIDE.]

VSS does have a rep for being "buggy" although this rep is largely
unfounded. It gets the rep primarily because of three reasons.
1) VSS needs to be periodically checked for errors (cleaned 'n packed).
Something, I often find users of the product not even aware of. The reason
for this is that VSS is extremely paranoid when it comes to integrity, it is
embarrassing redundant. The frequency depends on how it is being used. I
normally check mine every week and encounter a "repair" (which it can do
automatically) needed about 3 times a year.
2) Due to the way VSS manages its file store you cannot use incremental
backups (or other marking schemes), something Admins like. You must use
full-backups, something Admins normally don't like.
3) And last, a surprising number of developers don't know how to use or
design a SCCS and unfortunately the first SCCS they usually get their hands
on is VSS. :-)

-ralph


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