How much extra does Changeset Version Control cost developers?
By Ed Taekema in CM on September 23rd, 2008
I have written before about the benefit of advanced configuration management using change sets, namely that it gives you a clear understanding of what is in a build of your software and allows you to control that at a higher level than just individual file versions. The problem some developers face though, is that those benefit seem to cost more in terms of their efort than they are willing to pay. We have all had plenty of experience with heavy process tools that aren’t worth the effort required to use.
Changeset oriented CM doesn’t have to be that way, however. The critical step that is necessary is to add developer context information to the change set that gives details about the changeset. Normally this takes the form of a brief synopsis of the change and perhaps longer development notes if the changeset is involved. This can be a very short activity. SynergyCM blog walks through a comparison between a change set oriented developer workflow and a Visual Source Safe workflow and highlights how minimal the additions are to switch to a change set oriented solution. I imagine the steps would be very similar if switching from git or subversion.
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