Bug: "Keep checked out" doesn't always

JackTripper · Post by **JackTripper** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 8:59 pm

If the option "Check In unchanged files: Undo check out" is selected, the the checkin dialog will ignore the "Keep checked out" option.

The value of "Check in unchanged files" should only affect how a file actually being checked in will behave when putting it back into the vault (i.e. pretend i never checked it out, or mark it as updated when i checked in the nothing).

But if when checking in i say, "Keep checked out", i am not really checking it in. It can still decide how/if to mark unmodified files in the vault: but i still want the file to be checked out.

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:22 am

We'll add this as a bug, but note that if you want to simply overwrite the local file with what is in the repository, you can do that with a Get Latest -overwrite, rather than a checkin, but undo the checkin if it is unmodified, and then automatically check out.

JackTripper · Post by **JackTripper** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 9:40 am

dan wrote:We'll add this as a bug, but note that if you want to simply overwrite the local file with what is in the repository, you can do that with a Get Latest -overwrite, rather than a checkin, but undo the checkin if it is unmodified, and then automatically check out.

i don't think it is so much as bug (as far as you guys are concerned) as "this behaviour is by design".

Someone must have written code to specifically not check all the files when the user said "Check-in" a bunch of files.

That code can be commented out - leave checked on the "Check In" dialog, everything that was selected when the user hit "Check In."

JackTripper · Post by **JackTripper** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 6:42 am

My import finally finished, after a week, and after stalling on a particular label for 2 day.

i did a mass check-out of all the files in the vault, telling it to "Not overwrite/Merge later".

What's it do? Overwrites the work i've done for a week anyway.

Well that's pretty much the end of my testing of SoureGear Vault, a compelling replacement for SourceSafe.

Post by **jclausius** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:09 am

- Was this your first Get to the working folder?

- Did you by chance Checkout the files to a working folder which contained files NOT retrieved by Vault?

- What was the status of the files before the Checkout- Unknown? (Empty Status)?

- Did you check the _sgbak folders for overwritten work from a week? If not, you can retrieve the files from there.

- Were you planning to update the files from your work during the week? If so, I would have recommended setting a new working folder for the checkout, copy the files you've been working on for the last week over the files retrieved from the checkout. Finally check everything back in. The key is to NOT use a working folder to something that contains files which were not reteived by Vault (the Unknown status).

Sorry to see your frustration level maxed out. I fear it is too late for this suggestion, but there are KB articles explaining these things -

http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=562
http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=162
http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=131

JackTripper · Post by **JackTripper** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:21 am

[quote}Sorry to see your frustration level maxed out.[/quote]

It's not so much frustration, as the straw that broke my back.

i was hoping Vault was a replacement for SourceSafe. That should not mean paradigm changes, and it should also not mean UI changes.

I fear it is too late for this suggestion, but there are KB articles explaining these things

i glanced at those articles, which attempt to explain the paradigm of the "vault", "working folder", "backup folder", "these only apply to renegade.....files". These should be moot, since there is no need to explain anything, since it works just like VSS did, right?

It wasn't so horrible, since i have been using the SourceGear public test vault as my main development vault for a week now. And i had recent work checked in there. And so i only lost last night's work.

i will keep checking back on Vault every few months, to see if it becomes ready for production use.

The scary thing is that my import finished, so i was all ready to tell everyone to try it. They would have done what i did, being experienced VSS users, and would have also lost their work (anything that hasn't been put into source safe in the last week). Then my ass really would have been in a sling. Fortunatly, it was just me, and just a couple of hours of work.

One final thing. i realize you guys have all kinds of cool ideas of what you can do with source control; and all those can be great. But first and foremost, try to get a clone of VSS - with all it's features, concepts and some of it's quirks.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:18 am

JackTripper wrote:But first and foremost, try to get a clone of VSS - with all it's features, concepts and some of it's quirks.

You highlight an issue which has always been tricky to manage in our design of Vault. What should Vault be?

-- Should it be exactly like VSS in every way?

-- Or should it try to improve on VSS?

We've made a conscious and careful choice to aim for a sweet spot between these two extremes. We want to be as close as possible to VSS, while still offering some improvements to make the transition worthwhile.

Vault is still very similar to VSS. No other source control system offers a more painless transition for VSS users.

And yet, if Vault were exactly like VSS, with no improvements at all, what would be the point?

We're just trying to make Vault a good fit for the largest number of users we can. Lots of people like the choices we've made. I'm sorry that you are not one of them.

Thanks for the dialogue -- we don't mind when people make us think.

Eric Sink
SourceGear

JackTripper · Post by **JackTripper** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:16 pm

You highlight an issue which has always been tricky to manage in our design of Vault. What should Vault be?

-- Should it be exactly like VSS in every way?

-- Or should it try to improve on VSS?

i love the new and improved history versions getting dialog, it's speed, wealth of options, etc.
i like "obliterate"
i like the window of "all my stuff checked out and if it's been modified"
i like the progress bar that shows "getting files" progress.
i like this working folder (inherited) feature.
i like a lot of things in it.

But first and foremore, implement everything that VSS had. Right down to the checkbox "Keep checked out", and "Don't get local copy". Also, duplicate the "what" souce safe does. A lot of the dialogs believe that i will later on use (or trust) the merge feature. i personally think that merging files is a dangerous game, that by default should not be played. And source-safe by default doesn't play that, so neither should Vault.

i understand the value of vault making a backup copy of a file it doesn't recognize in my working folder; but i don't like it taking up extra space. VSS warned me that a file has been modified, and if i went ahead, it over-wrote it.

i don't like vault thinking it can erase files off my computer because they were removed from the vault.

i do like the improved "Add Files", since VSS's was always un-obvious and frustrating to use. But i don't like how the folder diff window in Vault can't let me check-in, check-out, add, delete files from the Vault/Working Folder.

VSS was much more clear about what it does to files on your computer and to the safe. You check it out, it puts the copy of the file in the safe into your working folder. If it's already checked out, you are warned before it over-writes. You can tell it not to over-write.

But it is still just a program that deals with the safe, and my working folder.

There is no last gotten cached version somewhere hidden on my computer. There is no tertiary backup version carried for n versions. It's a program to sync my folder to the safe.

It's simple. Clean. Obvious.

</rant>

We've made a conscious and careful choice to aim for a sweet spot between these two extremes. We want to be as close as possible to VSS, while still offering some improvements to make the transition worthwhile.

i like the idea (indeed i assumed and hoped) that Vault is VSS done right. Speed. History reports. Getting rid of all history for a file/project/project recursivly.

Vault is still very similar to VSS. No other source control system offers a more painless transition for VSS users.

This is probably true.

And yet, if Vault were exactly like VSS, with no improvements at all, what would be the point?

A telling example would be: get rid of "merging" files. But that's not really a choice, so instead make sure all dialogs default to the vss equivalent of either "Checkout", or "Checked out, Keep local copy".

And Checkin, checks in what i checked. Don't quietly change my selection so i'm only checking in what has actually been modified.

Keep the improvements; but mimic the same base conceptual functionality.

Hell, i would honestly be just as interested if the client looked EXACTLY like vss (down to the ugly icons) but was faster.

We're just trying to make Vault a good fit for the largest number of users we can. Lots of people like the choices we've made.

i think a lot of people are desperate to jump ship from VSS because of speed/scability/reliability issues.

Start with a clone of VSS that is fast, scalable and reliable. Then add all the features that i, and everyone else wants.

If that's what MS is doing, then i'll go there.

i hate CVS. i hate Star Team. They have moronic operating concepts.

i haven't seen any others.

Thanks for the dialogue -- we don't mind when people make us think.

i regret that i usually bitch more than i praise. i'm not all negative - i have the mentality that if it's already good, they nothing needs to be said.

You have written a lot of very good stuff there; i just wish i was in early conceptual design meetings

A lot of the product i do like. And i'd love to be able to switch over to it.

arden_dan · Post by **arden_dan** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 4:11 am

Of course you didn't really lose any work because you made a backup before doing the mass checkout. It would have been foolish not to exercise some caution, given your history with Vault testing.

</cynic>

JackTripper · Post by **JackTripper** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 6:31 pm

Problem is, i was ready to use it in production. i know how SourceSafe works, so i know how Vault works.

i spent a week importing our VSS database, and was ready to tell everyone else to begin seeing if they liked it - and use it on their real data.

If i hadn't lost my data, which i was able to recover, it would have been the person to lose someone else's data; with this new program.

i don't want that responsibility.

We all know how VSS works, and when Vault makes itself conceptually close enough to VSS that data can't be erased accidentally (because of a VSS user thinking they know what they're going) i'll give it a round #2.

arden_dan wrote:It would have been foolish not to exercise some caution

GregM · Post by **GregM** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 8:42 pm

As has been pointed out, you didn't lose any data. Vault put the files in the _sgbak directories before it overwrote them. With VSS, you can actually lose data, by accidentally telling it to overwrite all files. With Vault, it saves those files first so you can recover them.

i don't like vault thinking it can erase files off my computer because they were removed from the vault.

But you just said you want it to be just like VSS. It's an option in VSS, it's an option in Vault.

Remove Local Copy After Delete

This option causes VSS to automatically remove the working folder copy of a file you delete in VSS. This helps keep disk clutter to a minimum. And, as long as you haven't destroyed or purged the file in the VSS database, you can always recover the file later.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 4:56 pm

JackTripper wrote:[quote}Sorry to see your frustration level maxed out.

It's not so much frustration, as the straw that broke my back.

i was hoping Vault was a replacement for SourceSafe. That should not mean paradigm changes, and it should also not mean UI changes.

I fear it is too late for this suggestion, but there are KB articles explaining these things

i glanced at those articles, which attempt to explain the paradigm of the "vault", "working folder", "backup folder", "these only apply to renegade.....files". These should be moot, since there is no need to explain anything, since it works just like VSS did, right?

It wasn't so horrible, since i have been using the SourceGear public test vault as my main development vault for a week now. And i had recent work checked in there. And so i only lost last night's work.

i will keep checking back on Vault every few months, to see if it becomes ready for production use.

The scary thing is that my import finished, so i was all ready to tell everyone to try it. They would have done what i did, being experienced VSS users, and would have also lost their work (anything that hasn't been put into source safe in the last week). Then my ass really would have been in a sling. Fortunatly, it was just me, and just a couple of hours of work.

One final thing. i realize you guys have all kinds of cool ideas of what you can do with source control; and all those can be great. But first and foremost, try to get a clone of VSS - with all it's features, concepts and some of it's quirks.[/quote]

GregM · Post by **GregM** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:20 pm

i was hoping Vault was a replacement for SourceSafe. That should not mean paradigm changes, and it should also not mean UI changes.

Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more. There are plenty of things in the VSS paradigm and the VSS UI that we didn't like, which is why we switched to Vault after using VSS since 1996, and SourceOffSite a few years after that.

These should be moot, since there is no need to explain anything, since it works just like VSS did, right?

I wouldn't say that. I'd say "it works like VSS did, except where VSS was broken in some way, and then it works better."

i will keep checking back on Vault every few months, to see if it becomes ready for production use.

For us, it's been ready for production use for more than a year.

One final thing. i realize you guys have all kinds of cool ideas of what you can do with source control; and all those can be great. But first and foremost, try to get a clone of VSS - with all it's features, concepts and some of it's quirks.

[/quote]

Please, no, don't introduce ANY new VSS quirks. About the only thing I miss is Find in Files, and that's very rare. Most of the time I need to do a Find in Files, I already have the source on my machine.

dan · Post by **dan** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:38 pm

Obviously there are philosophical differences here that probably can't be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, but it does look like this is an old repost of the same message from a while back, which I'm assuming was mistake of some kind.

Just to follow up though: the original issue that was reported at the start of this thread was addressed in version 3.0 (that Keep Checked Out doesn't work if you checkin an unmodified file).