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I'm rather surprised that Microsoft chose to use git for Windows rather than roll their own SCM. It seems to clearly not be suited for the needs of Windows. For

I'm rather surprised that Microsoft chose to use git for Windows rather than roll their own SCM. It seems to clearly not be suited for the needs of Windows. For a software company that's so invested in dogfooding, git's a really odd choice.

thrownaway954 9y ago
Did you ever use TFVC (shudder) or SourceSafe (vomit)? I'm glad they chose git... keep them productive and making Windows 10 better.
- gargravarr 9y ago
  I know SourceSafe was a disaster and didn't think anyone used it until I started with a firm in 2013 - thankfully they were on SVN, but the first commit of the repo was from 2009, which stated simply, 'Initial import from VSS'. The company was founded in 1995... TFVC is annoyingly proprietary but seems to follow a solid client/server model. Git support is very nice.
  - thrownaway954 9y ago
    i don't know about solid... to me, when i can't work and have to track down someone to checkin their changes to unlock a file, there are issues. maybe other places have better practices in place to prevent this stuff from happening and i was just unlucky.
sebazzz 9y ago
They use VSTS, that is certainly dogfooding if not anything else. As for the VCS, they probably want something distributed, and Microsoft has no distributed version control system. I'm sure there are other reasons too.
gargravarr 9y ago
Article on their migration: https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/24/microsoft-now-uses-git-and-gvfs-to-develop-windows/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/24/microsoft-now-uses-git-and...
lev99 9y ago
I think the amount of development required to make a new SCM was more than the amount of development required to modify git. In addition most software engineers are already familiar with git so there is less training required, and it is used as a symbol of their open source embrace.
dpark 9y ago
Dogfooding does not mean that everything should be built in house. It means you should use what you’re selling. Microsoft has built multiple source control systems. The world is moving toward distributed version control. I’m happy Microsoft is headed down that path instead of trying to invent centralized version control yet again.

thrownaway954 9y ago

Did you ever use TFVC (shudder) or SourceSafe (vomit)? I'm glad they chose git... keep them productive and making Windows 10 better.

gargravarr 9y ago
I know SourceSafe was a disaster and didn't think anyone used it until I started with a firm in 2013 - thankfully they were on SVN, but the first commit of the repo was from 2009, which stated simply, 'Initial import from VSS'. The company was founded in 1995... TFVC is annoyingly proprietary but seems to follow a solid client/server model. Git support is very nice.
- thrownaway954 9y ago
  i don't know about solid... to me, when i can't work and have to track down someone to checkin their changes to unlock a file, there are issues. maybe other places have better practices in place to prevent this stuff from happening and i was just unlucky.

sebazzz 9y ago

They use VSTS, that is certainly dogfooding if not anything else. As for the VCS, they probably want something distributed, and Microsoft has no distributed version control system. I'm sure there are other reasons too.

gargravarr 9y ago

Article on their migration: https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/24/microsoft-now-uses-git-and-gvfs-to-develop-windows/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/24/microsoft-now-uses-git-and...

lev99 9y ago

I think the amount of development required to make a new SCM was more than the amount of development required to modify git. In addition most software engineers are already familiar with git so there is less training required, and it is used as a symbol of their open source embrace.

dpark 9y ago

Dogfooding does not mean that everything should be built in house. It means you should use what you’re selling. Microsoft has built multiple source control systems. The world is moving toward distributed version control. I’m happy Microsoft is headed down that path instead of trying to invent centralized version control yet again.