Android GPS

Which version control system is best for your android projects?

Version control systems are indispensable if you’re working on a multi-person project, and they’re pretty damn useful even if you’re just working solo. Keeping a full history of the changes you’ve made gives you a basic backup and enables you to revert back to an earlier version if you screw something up.

But with so many options available, from the dated CVS to Bazaar, Subversion and Git, which one is best? What about distributed versus centralised? Which one might best suit you and your project, whether that’s large-scale software, small-scale coding, keeping track of config files or anything else that might spring to mind.

Google suggests android developers to use Repo and Git as version control system for their android projects:
https://sites.google.com/a/android.com/opensource/download/using-repo

However, www.andgps.com suggests you to use Fossil as version control system for your android projects.

Why Use Fossil? What makes Fossil worthy of attention?

1. Bug Tracking And Wiki - In addition to doing distributed version control like Git and Mercurial, Fossil also supports distributed bug tracking, distributed wiki, and a distributed blog mechanism all in a single integrated package.

2. Web Interface - Fossil has a built-in and easy-to-use web interface that simplifies project tracking and promotes situational awareness. Simply type “fossil ui” from within any check-out and Fossil automatically opens your web browser in a page that gives detailed graphical history and status information on that project. (This is the feature you should like the most)

3. Autosync - Fossil supports “autosync” mode which helps to keep projects moving forward by reducing the amount of needless forking and merging often associated with distributed projects.

4. Self-Contained - Fossil is a single stand-alone executable that contains everything needed to do configuration management. Installation is trivial: simply download a precompiled binary for Linux, Mac, or Windows and put it on your $PATH.

5. Simple Networking - Fossil uses plain old HTTP (with proxy support) for all network communications, meaning that it works fine from behind restrictive firewalls. The protocol is bandwidth efficient to the point that Fossil can be used comfortably over a dial-up internet connection.

6. CGI Enabled - No server is required to use fossil. But a server does make collaboration easier. Fossil supports three different yet simple server configurations. The most popular is a 2-line CGI script. This is the approach used by the self-hosting fossil repositories.

7. Robust & Reliable - Fossil stores content using an enduring file format in an SQLite database so that transactions are atomic even if interrupted by a power loss or system crash. Furthermore, automatic self-checks verify that all aspects of the repository are consistent prior to each commit. In over three years of operation, no work has ever been lost after having been committed to a Fossil repository.

8. Windows Platform - If you are using Windows platform to develope android projects, Fossil may be the only choice. Other free version control systems seem to run in Linux only, while Fossil can run in Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Because of the above reasons, www.andgps.com suggests you to use Fossil instead of Repo and Git.

For your information, all andgps source code templates were developed in Windows platform. We used Fossil with XAMPP (XAMPP is an integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl) to use Fossil’s Web Interface for easy check-in/check-out.

Download links

Fossil for Windows:
http://www.fossil-scm.org/download.html (look for Windows icon)

XAMPP for Windows:
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html