I am in the process of gathering a small team, and I wanted to know if anyone can recommend methods of sharing source and art. All I know of is CVS, which I haven't even used, so my knowledge is limited.

What do I really need? Where can I get started on learning how to set up a system like this?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Never tried it, but WinCVS (http://www.wincvs.org/) might be useful (IMHO CVS alone is almost unusable - it's a pain).

Well, we use WinMerge which is basically a prog that checks if two files are different.

But the main ways to collaborate are for example:
-IRC
-ICQ
-discussion forums
-email
-FTP

:)

IMHO WinCVS is even more unusable than command line CVS.. what you want is TortoiseCVS (google it!)

CVS is great for sharing source code among different programmers, and I'd even recommend it (or some other kind of source code revision system) if you were the only programmer in the team.

However, CVS is notoriously bad with binary files such as artwork. With a little workaround it can handle binary files -- you have to flag certain file types as binary -- but it doesn't store them as diffs internally (like it does text files).

Every time you check in a new version of a binary file, it copies the contents of the whole binary file into the repository. Do this often with large files and your repository will grow significantly. Whether this will be a problem for you depends on how much binary data you will be storing.

I've been recommended WinMerge too (though I've never used it either ;-) ).

And I've just noticed that DevC++ apparently handles CVS operations.

As for communications, I use Jabber and email to discuss with the friend who's making the music for my game... And used IRC once to ask a graphician friend of mine to draw me a note of music - not sure if that counts ;-).

Check out SourceJammer (http://sourcejammer.sourceforge.net/) as well.

If sourcejammer is what it says it is, then it is exactly what I need.

Thanks!

No problem... glad I could help. The only thing to keep in mind with SourceJammer is that it does not have concurrent versioning, meaning that it uses a straight forward check-in/check-out system (though concurrent versioning is apparently on the table for a future version), rather than a simultaneous work-flow with comparison and merging of differences.

But otherwise, it does sport many useful features and is easy to use. It should be pretty well suited for a small to medium sized team.

CVS is eeeevvvvviiiiilllllll. Run away.

SourceJammer is ok, but it was kind of flaky when we looked at it about a year ago. It may have improved since then.

I'm currently using Perforce, and like it the best out of the ones I've used.

http://www.perforce.com/

There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's not too steep, and the user interface is nice. I've also found its more reliable than VSS.

For communication, I've relied on MSIM, AIM, and ICQ.

SourceJammer is ok, but it was kind of flaky when we looked at it about a year ago. It may have improved since then.

I've been using SourceJammer just for myself for revision control on a complex project I am currently working on and have had no major problems... overall it has worked quite well. However, I have not used it with a group of developers, and I can't speak to its effectiveness that way, though it seems like it should perform nicely.

I'm currently using Perforce, and like it the best out of the ones I've used.

I really dislike Perforce, as do many others, but it seems as if there are just as many who swear by it, so... viva le difference.

Hm, might I ask why you dislike Perforce?

Perhaps there are some things that I don't know about...

Thanks

Anthony

Anthony,

Actually, it's more likely that I am the one who doesn't know. I used Perforce briefly some time ago because it was the system of choice for a project that I worked on, but the interface just never seemed to click with me. In addition, I was under the impression (if I remember correctly) that having more than two developers required a commercial license, and I was looking to stay no-cost and open source.

For those interested, here are a few other threads that mention Perforce:

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1253&highlight=perforce

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1504&highlight=perforce

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=959&highlight=perforce

I'm using Subersion (SVN) (http://subversion.tigris.org/) with TortoiseSVN (http://subversion.tigris.org/). They say SVN is similiar to CVS but better. (I wouldn't know because I've never used CVS. Actually it's under development by the developers of CVS itself!)

The short list of key features are:
- Automatically and reliably handles binary files. (I heard there are difficulties using binary files in CVS .)
- Uses atomic transactional commits(check-ins).
- The same working model as CVS (merges etc.)
- Free and open source for any amount of users

And with TortoiseSVN you get a full featured source control system that nicely integrates with windows explorer!