http://morison.biz/technotes/articles/16 As a daily user and occasional administrator of SCM I've come across plenty of fact and some religion about SCM systems. Here's my take, sticking to the systems I've been hands on with. Oh, and I'm going to make it brief. Hence, I'll avoid feature details...just IMO. First, the systems I've have hands on experience with, both user and admin (and omitting oldsters like RCS and SCCS): CVS - Been using and admin'ing it for years (decades?) Subversion - Setup, admin'd & used it for one (large) webapp system SourceSafe - Used it once ten years ago (my hope of not using it again has worked out so far) ClearCase - Used for one large C++ CAD application. Administer this beast? No way! Perforce - Used for several projects, from a 3M LOC system to garden variety websites and desktop apps. Setup and admin'd two deployments. Disclaimer: I know there are a number of other SCM systems, but I'm not writing a magazine editorial, just documenting what I've worked with. Key SCM Features I boil the value of SCM system into a 3 level progression, with the most sophisticated systems satisfying all three. There are important features that don't fit in these groups, but in IMO, SCM systems that efficiently nail the items below really save an organization time and money. Manage multiple developer contributions and track individual changes Manage large hierarchies of source that can be combined in different ways for different product builds with lots of developers working in parallel Manage change policy, i.e., branch off a copy of source for beta test (limited developer changes) and production (no developer changes) based on policy and keep track of both policy and branches came from. All the systems (short of the unmentioned zipfile backup SCM system) ... en 2006-2008, Rod Morison Software technotes@morison.biz Sun, 20 May 2012 04:49:26 GMT Yet Another Community System http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 70