Visual Studio® 2008 ALL-IN-ONE DESK REFERENCE FOR DUMMIES®

Chapter VI.3. Checking Out Source Control

Whether you're on a team of hundreds or a team of one, you need some way to manage your source code. You use source code control software for these tasks:

• Provide a central repository for storing source code.

• Create a new version of source code every time changes are made.

• Track the history of your source code.

The standard and Professional versions of Visual Studio don't provide source code control features. However, they provide menus and windows that you can use to access some third-party, source-code control products, such as Microsoft's Visual SourceSafe (VSS). Any source code control software that implements the Visual Studio Integration Protocol can provide source control services to Visual Studio.

Using Source Code Control with Visual Studio

Visual Studio provides menu commands that you can use to drive the features of your integrated source code control provider. Visual Studio acts as a gateway to third-party source control providers, which are referred to as plug-ins in Visual Studio.

A source code control environment includes these elements:

• A centralized database — Stores master copies of source code

• Local working folders — Holds source code that's downloaded on each developer's computer for editing

A team can use a dedicated build server that downloads source code from the database to a local working folder.

How source code control works

Any developer who needs to use source code downloads a working copy of the source code to a local folder. ...