I’m finally (after far too many years) starting to use a version control system. I’ve always used “a better one is coming” as a reason. cvs, subversion, git, plus a slew of commercial ones have temped me like Perforce. It is a bad reason, but I haven’t written code in a couple of years, so it didn’t hurt too much. Now is the time. Maybe for code, but most immediately for DNS. Subversion is my choice. Around long enough to be well known and supported and new enough to deal with most of the common problems.
While I am comfortable on the command line, I live in a GUI, so I wanted some tools to help me learn, use, and manage it all. So I’m looking for a graphical subversion client. So far, I’ve been playing with these:
Platform: A Mac OS X application. While I use Windows and Linux also, so much of my “SVN related” time will be Mac OS X that this is actually a plus.
Pros: Mac OS X native and very nice looking.
Cons: No built in editor (or viewer). It would be nice to have a “quick look” function that assumed a plain text file if it didn’t know the extension. There is support for the Mac OS X quick look facility, but it doesn’t work with enough artifacts given odd file names used for config and other text oriented files in the stuff I’m working with. The assumption that you edit in an app specifically designed for the file type is ok, but sometimes not appropriate or worth the effort for a small change.
Platform: A cross platform application that works fine on Mac OS X.
Cost: Normally $99, but currently $59. If I read it right, I, as a single user, can put it on the various computers I use (desktop and two laptops, including the one Windows laptop I sometimes use).
Pros: Built in editor that is sufficient for quick changes. Cross platform could be handy. Revision graph could help make sense of the lineage of versions and branches.
Cons: Being cross platform, it isn’t very pretty to look at.
Platform: Mac OS X
Cost: $69. I, as a single user, can put it on two computers (which is probably ok since I normally use one iMac and one MacBook)
Pros: Mac OS X native and looks good. Has most features I can think of using. Built in quick revision comparison is very simple, quick and useful.
Cons: A built in editor would be nice, but there are a lot of built in “quick view” options, both leveraging the OS “quick look” function as well as a built in text viewing feature in the main app window (“Toggle Contents”) which worked very well for my needs.
Decision. I’ll decide in the next week. Right now I’m torn between Cornerstone and Versions. If Cornerstone was a little less I’d pull the trigger. May end up there anyways because of the built in previews (or diff and contents).
There are a slew of other clients available. A table listing and comparing can be found on Wikipedia.
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