Subversion Choices

Question

I know the question has been probably asked hundreds of times, but I have been looking into setting up a subversion client at work and was wondering what would be most suitable. I have had experience with AnhkSvn as well as VisualSVN (of cource tortise as well as these both require as a dependency) and a version control called Alienbrain.

I liked all of the clients I have used before, but all dealt with c++ development in only visual studios, I am now looking for a client to work across both visual studios and eclipse. I do not think either AnhkSVN or VisualSVN can do this. On Wikipedia compare I did not see any that did this.

I know i could go with the approach of using two separate clients for the two IDEs but i would like to keep it straight forward with the same SVN interface for both if possible. I could have done it with something like alienbrain because merging and locking happen automatically at the file level but our we use a subversion server and alienbrain requires alienbrain to be the server aswell.

any insight on this question will be greatly appreciated. Thanks ocv

Answer 1

AnhkSvn is not a Subversion client. It's a plugin for VisualStudio that allows VisualStudio to use Subversion as its version control system.

Eclipse has its own plugin (Two in fact: Subversive by the folks who created Eclipse, and Subclipse by the people who wrote Subversion.

I like Subclipse because it allows me to choose between SVNKit and JavaHL while Subversive uses JavaHL only. I've had trouble with JavaHL although some people prefer it. I think JavaHL is open source and SVNKit isn't, but I'm not 100% sure. Heck, maybe Subversive now can use SVNKit.

So, there is really no one client solution since Eclipse and VisualStudio each need their own plugin. However, it is never a one client fits all. There are dozens of Subversion clients (some visual, some command line oriented) and you can use the one you want.

Heck, you can usually use more than one if you prefer. For example, I generally prefer the command line svn client, but I'll switch to TortoiseSVN when I'm doing a history or difference. I have no problems switching back and forth.