Revision control locking: Is the jury still out?

Question

When I\'m online it seems that everyone has agreed that using the exclusive locking workflow in source control is a Bad Thing. All the new revision control systems I see app

Answer 1

A bit late to this discussion but to anybody who has read and digested Steve Maguire's Writing Solid Code a central point is to have your tools detect and identify as many problems as possible.

A compiler doesn't get tired after 12 or more straight hours and forget to issue a syntax error. But it is quite easy to forget a manual step of initiating a communication and paying for it later.

If you need to version control a binary file then you need some form of locking to prevent - or at least warn of - an accidental overwrite. It must be a fundamental feature of any VCS even a distributed one. To use such a feature in a DVCS may require the creation of a central repository but is that so evil? If you use a DVCS in any sort of corporate environment, you will have a central repo to ensure business continuity.