This blog is going to have surfing, snowboarding, tech stuff and maybe some 'meaning of life' stuff if I'm feeling particularly stoked.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Need a new Source Control System?

Just some local knowledge I picked up here in Redmond.

Ever wondered what source control system Microsoft use?

They use a variation of a system called Perforce. Looks like they acquired the source code rights years ago, so their version (excuse the the pun) is not branded Perforce but insiders tell me it is practically the same system (down to the help files) albeit maybe a few releases back from the commercially available product.

Anyway, we've been using the system for a few weeks and it's pretty nifty, features like ChangeSets and a decent graphical interface have already sold me after a couple of years struggling with PVCS. The big plus for me though was that Perforce, unlike PVCS, has a single command that can merge file changes between branches.

So if anyone out there works for a great big company with plenty of money to switch their SCM tool I'd say ...... what are you waiting for!

b