Before I say anything, I admit that this is not the sexiest ot subjects, but...There seems to be at least half a dozen source code control applications which are considered vaguely mainstream - I won't even begin to guess how many "niche" variants exist out there.Is there any one which seems to dominate in quant groups ?My guess is that Sourcesafe probably has a big following because of its integration with Visual Studio. Is this the case ?Or do things like WinCVS and ClearCase have big followings as well ?So far I've seen all 3 in use in large-ish banks and hedge funds (it's been a long long time since I saw SCCS in a company) but am trying to get an idea as to what the bulk of quants / quant devs seem to end up using...Please though - don't start a religious war as to the merits of each application or begin flaming others. I'm fully aware as to the strengths and weaknesses of each application. I'm just trying to find out which application is most heavily used, not find out which is the best.

> My guess is that Sourcesafe probably has a big following because of its integration with Visual StudioI use this; works fine.

Whatever is the cheapest and works the best for your needs. VSS and CVS are cheap and easy to use.

> Whatever is the cheapest and works the best for your needsJust like my car

VSS is really bad when it comes to branching and merging. There is no control at an atomic level, i.e. when you change multiple files you can't check them all in as one check in.I am currently evaluating another approach of source control services, it's a peer to peer service.... code co-op. Simple, clear on what it does and doesn't and ensures a strict project evolution. It doesn't do branch and merge, but offers an easy way to bypass it. It ihas visual studio integration as well.WinCVS or clearcase requires some administration which can be tedious, avoid perforce which literally requires someone to administrate it 50% of his time.

Clearcase is very impressive, however it is big and requires administration, by a - you guessed it - clearcase administrator. Plus it is a little different with the concept of VOBs, snapshot and dynamic views, etc, so you have to give users a little training. It can also be a little slow with large checkouts, especially if the hardware that it is running on is not up to scratch. However, Clearcase is a Configuration Management tool (it goes beyond Source Code Control).Although we are currently using CVS, I must say that the best, leanest, fastest, most robust source code control tool I ever have used is called perforce. Perforce Link

QuoteOriginally posted by: filippibVSS is really bad when it comes to branching and merging. There is no control at an atomic level, i.e. when you change multiple files you can't check them all in as one check in.I am currently evaluating another approach of source control services, it's a peer to peer service.... code co-op. Simple, clear on what it does and doesn't and ensures a strict project evolution. It doesn't do branch and merge, but offers an easy way to bypass it. It ihas visual studio integration as well.WinCVS or clearcase requires some administration which can be tedious, avoid perforce which literally requires someone to administrate it 50% of his time.I have to say I personally hate Clearcase - any product which takes more manuals to control my sourcecode than the manuals for the language the code is written in is a bit of a no go for me really.RCS, CVS or even the venerable PVCS are all pretty good (certainly good enough). If all you want is simple version tracking and rollback + an archive Visual Sourcesafe is actually pretty hard to beat.

VS.Net +VSSworks fine=)

I have noticed a BIG difference between VSS and CVS when it comes to performance over a network with some latency. We used to share code between US / UK / Japan using VSS and it was painful (down to the protocol involving many round-trips, rather than the volume of data). Using WinCVS has mad this wide-area sharing easy and fast. If your repository is connected via LAN, then I still like VSS, but for performance over a WAN it may not be the best choice.

MichealA was just trying to find out which source control application is most heavily used, not to find out which is the best: in my experience 50% VSS and 50% CVSOf course this thread focus has now shifted toward finding out which is the best. My experience:a) VSS is not good at branching and merging, and it has high latency time: it is unusable for geographically distributed networkb) CVS is de facto standard for open source development, it has proven itself in many very large tasksc) both VSS and CVS are not atomic (when you change multiple files you can't check them all in as one single atomic check in)d) both VSS and CVS do not perform versioning of folderse) SubVersion (the "evolution" of CVS) has fixed c), d) and moref) CVS and SubVersion are free software: they're gratis and you can customize them to your needsUnless you have some very exotic special requirements which can't be satisfied with CVS or SubVersion I strongly suggest themciao -- NandoPS Linus Torvald uses BitKeeper for the development of the Linux kernel

try, free subversion system with a windows client like TortoiseSVNhttp://subversion.tigris.org/

Ametrano is right, MichaekA is only looking for info on the most used.VSS for front office desks, as it is simple to deploy.CVS ( moving to subversion ) for IT groups who are looking for a more powerful software

>> CVS ( moving to subversion ) for IT groups who are looking for a more powerful software You think CVS has a bigger followijng than ClearCase? I'm not sure I would agree with you there. Rational is BIG with anywhere where the IBM salesfolk have put down their poison.

I have seen more CVS than clearcase, but I left the big shop industry some time ago so I will trust you they have picked up ( yes it's poison! ). Small to medium shops will still have CVS, I guess...