The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

SourceGear Vault evaluation

Hi,

VSS is quite bad and we are switching from it because our main repository is about to hit 5 GB, we tried CVS but even it felt arcane compared to VSS. We tried Perforce and loved it, alas it is a little too pricey for us.

We are currently evaluating the Vault program (Version 1.2.3) and just wanted to get some opinions on it from anybody else who uses it before making the purchase:

1. Does anybody use it with VFP8? Have you run into any issues with it in this capacity?

2. Using it With VS.Net 2003?

3. How large is your repository? I tested it with an imported version of part of our VSS repository, approx. 1Gig in SQL Server and while it was still quite quick, I did notice it getting a little sluggish.

4. In general how would you rate it against something like VSS? (It aint hard to beat VSS, but in our 30 day trial we have found it better, and we just want to see how you like it after using it for a while.)

5. How long have you been using it?

6. How is their support in general? I emailed their support yesterday afternoon and haven't received an answer yet, but I will give it another day or 2 before trying again.

Thanks for any answers (or pointers to other version control systems that aren't like CVS but still allow us to keep our arms and legs (and hopefully firstborns as well))

ChrisO
Tuesday, January 6, 2004

I have no experience with any of them, but how about Bit Keeper? I've heard good things about that too. Or is Bit Keeper not the same type of product?

Mike
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

BitKeeper costs a TON of money if you're not working on an open source project.

Brad Wilson (dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com)
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

1. I have never used Vault with VFP8.

2. I do use VS.NET 2003, but I use Vault's standalone client, not the IDE integration client. IMNSHO, most source control tools suck when used inside Visual Studio. Vault is no exception, and may in fact be worse, at least compared to VSS. The Visual Studio integration APIs just weren't designed to handle the kinds of features Vault has. I'm looking forward to Whidbey, which is supposed to contain much better APIs for source control integration.

3. Our repository is not very large, but I've heard that there are happy Vault users with repositories of a hundred thousand files and up.

4. Low hurdle. Vault still needs to improve, but it already rocks compares to VSS.

5. I've been using Vault longer than any other person on earth. In fact, I started using it regularly over six months before they released version 1.0.

6. Not only is their tech support outstanding, I heard they're all very good looking. Sometimes it takes them a day or so to respond to something in the support queue, but you will get an answer.

Do I need to put a disclosure of my employment affiliation at the bottom of this note, or will a smiley suffice?

:-)

Eric Sink
Wednesday, January 7, 2004

Ha!! Great post. Who WAS that masked man..........

(And I'd like to mention that spam and spam blockers occasionally interfere with people's ability to conduct email support. In general, if you haven't heard back from a company, don't forget to consider that they may have replied and had their email identified as spam, or perhaps your email even got misidentifed as spam on their end. Just throwing that out there... my two cents and all that...)

Dmitri Kalmar
Wednesday, January 7, 2004