Introduction

Visual SourceSafe 2005 – Software Configuration Management in Practice is a book written by Alexandru Serban and published by Packt. After completing it, the first sensation is to have gained a good knowledge of Visual SourceSafe, a Software Configuration Management solution by Microsoft. Indeed, I was able to successfully create and manage new projects in minutes.

Written by: Alexandru Serban
Pages: 404
Publisher: Packt Publishing
ISBN: 1904811698

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bit about Software Configuration Management

For the uninitiated, Software Configuration Management can seem overwhelming and unnecessary. It’s easy to disregard it as a burden that’ll only slow you and your team down. The truth is that most developers, once they’ve had their first taste of it, consider such a tool absolutely essential. A Software Configuration Management system enables teams of developers to work efficiently together, tracks all changes to the code, and makes it easy to perform more advanced tasks such as labeling and branching. Best of all, many, such as Visual SourceSafe, are easy to set up and integrate directly into your development environment (Visual Studio.NET).

The book is very easy and pleasant to read. The writing style is not authoritative although very clear, concise and concrete without any fuss. Sentences flow well and concepts are well organized and split in seven chapters across the book. There are also three appendixes, covering the installation process and database maintenance.

Overview of the content

Chapter 1 is a really good start. It defines and illustrates the main definitions and concepts related to Source Configuration Management. The chapter is defined as a “neutral” one because it doesn’t address any specific framework. For this reason, I particularly enjoyed it because it gave me the necessary background to move ahead. The many diagrams are nice, clear and expressive.

Chapter 2 and 3 introduce the Visual SourceSafe architecture. A real-life web application is used throughout the book to illustrate the various tasks involved in Source Control Management. The possibility to rely on a real-life example (a room reservation system) comes as a great advantage whenever the author needs to further clarify a concept.

Chapter 4 is not directly related to Visual SourceSafe. The chapter illustrates how to create the ASP.NET web application – a room reservation system for the HorbitalHotel – used throughout the book. Nonetheless, it offers an interesting review of the main concepts related to web application development. It also teaches you how to setup and configure a solution with multiple projects in Visual Studio 2005.

Chapter 5 is a long and exhaustive examination of the tasks that can be accomplished with Visual SourceSafe 2005. It’s probably the chapter you are most often going to browse as reference, together with chapter 7. With a precise objective in mind – putting the OrbitalHotel web application under source control – the various paragraphs explain how setup the repository and manage the source files. Each paragraph describe a particular task, such as performing a check-in, comparing file versions, managing changes and conflicts, with the help of an impressive quantity of screenshots. Thanks to the large number of images, it’s virtually impossible to make a wrong step. For each operation presented, the author suggests the best tool to accomplish it - whether it is the Visual Studio plug-in or the Visual SourceSafe Explorer. Furthermore, the author provides suggestions and best practices through the many callouts occurring in the chapters.

After a chapter dedicated to remote and offline management of repositories, Chapter 7 introduces the reader to the basics of software engineering and the software development lifecycle. Milestones, snapshots, branches, codelines are explained in great detail. I’ve particularly enjoyed the overview of the most used tools in software development phases like Building, Code Analysis, Unit Testing and Code Coverage.

Conclusion

If you want to adopt Visual SourceSafe 2005 as the Software Configuration Management software for your company, I highly recommend reading this book. Four stars out of five.

About Alessandro Gallo

Alessandro "Garbin" Gallo is a Microsoft MVP in the Visual ASP/ASP.NET category and a .NET developer/consultant. He is a contributor for the Ajax Control Toolkit project, owned by Microsoft. Alessandro won the Grand Prize at the "Mash-it-up with ASP.NET AJAX" contest held by Micr... This author has published 23 articles on DotNetSlackers. View other articles or the complete profile here.