The biggest challenge to using Git with PB 201x is branching.

To me, that's the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd reason to switch to Git - the ability to branch your code, work on individual/multiple feature branches, and have more control over how you build and release your software.  

If you want to do these things, the pain points of switching to Git are worth it.

If you want a simple check in/check out environment with exclusive locking, then it's probably not worth the effort.

My recommendation is to use a 3rd party GUI tool to help with branch management and workflow.  I'm partial to SourceTree myself, as it has built-in Git-flow support which is very nice.

The PB IDE does not directly support branching internally, meaning you have no visibility in the IDE as to your active/checked out branch that you're working on.  That's where a tool like SourceTree really helps - you can visually see what your active branch is, and easily switch between branches.  

When you switch branches, in the IDE you simply do a "Refresh" to resync to the new branch.  A lesson you'll learn quickly - always commit your changes before switching branches!  That lesson sinks in quickly when you have to rewrite the same code twice.

As with anything, change is difficult and uncomfortable at first.  My personal opinion is that it's worth making the switch if you want to take advantage of the branching features of Git.  We're using it successfully with Azure DevOps/Git and it's helped us better manage our feature development and release deployments.

John

If the PB 2019 IDE supported branching, I think I could do all my Git work there, but since it doesn't, it's easier doing everything via the command line, in VS Code, or the web.

But we are justing starting to get into it and we only have 2 PB Devs. The rest of the devs are Angular and .Net and have been using Git for a couple of years. So, we are learning the process thru them, which does not include the PB IDE.

For us, it's about performance.  TFS and Powerbuilder is slow.  We are transitioning from TFS to Git, so our source is in both repositories.  When I open a pbl in the system tree (connected to TFS), and try to access source code, it takes awhile, sometimes there's an hourglass, sometimes not.  Accessing Git is instantaneous, even though the repo is remote as well.  But, of course, PB accesses the local Git repo and then we push it to the remote repo using either Visual code or Github desktop and that doesn't take long either.

So, it might take a bit to learn source control using Git, the performance benefit far outweighs any cons.

FYI -

You can get used to anything, including the incredibly complex GIT or SVN source control systems.

After testing with both, after actually getting them to work, I decided to not use either. Too clunky, too cumbersome, and way too much junk in the popup menus and on the hard drive.

Note that I am the sole developer in our shop so that was a decision that was easy for me to make.

I wanted to use Roland Smith's source control  ( http://www.topwizprogramming.com/wizsource.html ), but my company declined. I ended up putting each full build into separate folders in the PRODHIST folder. It works for us and provides for an absolutely secure backup.


Olan

Hi,

After having used good old TFS with the MSSCCI intermediate layer for years, it started to become buggy since MS no longer seems to upgrade that layer for local server installs. You're bound to Visual Studio / Team Explorer 2013 and might get away with 2015, but depending on which project you might have connected to in VS, it started to fail now and then and some problems with workspaces can only be solved from the commandline.

We've tried "Visual Studio Team Services" on the cloud (free account up to 5 users) and it just did not work. We're still waiting for Appeon to integrate native support on TFS, but who knows, maybe it's not going to happen as it looks like SVN and GIT are preferred and maybe we'd have to migrate to GIT or SVN. What I'm hearing of other users does not give me the impression that they're without any problems, simple to use and mature though, so meanwhile we're still on good old Visual Source Safe 2005 :s

It's simple and works "well enough" for now, though we only have a few developers. 

regards.

Hi, I did a little web surfing for TFVC. Most recent release of TFS is rebranded Azure DevOps Server 2019 whereas VSTS is rebranded Azure DevOps Services.

Here's a Microsoft link comparing TFVC vs. git.

What I can read is that Microsoft regards TFVC as mature so little reason to expand. MS has invested a lot of resources on improving git, among them git virtual file system (GFVS) to ensure MS Windows can reside in git and still have good performance.

So improvements on git but TFVC stays in the product. Appeon may have more insight than I do to guide their schedule for native TFVC integration in PowerBuilder IDE (and SnapDevelop).

HTH /Michael

Hi Aron,

Currently only native source control API for git and for SVN. Unsure of current plans for TFVC as I remember rumors that Microsoft is focusing on git going forward.

I've used git source control for about a year without issue. There are a few requirements you need to have in place, like PBW must be located in your git repo's root folder - or you ask for trouble.

HTH /Michael