SQL Source control 2004 - a must-have tool for developers working with SQL Server 2000 edition.

SQL Source control 2004

Features

Generally speaking, source control tools provide these features:

Check out, check in
Developers check out a file by downloading a copy from the central repository to their local computer before modifying it. As a rule, while a file is checked out, other developers cannot check it out or modify it, but they can usually view it by synchronizing, or getting a read-only copy of it. When developers are done with a file, they can check in their changes by checking in, or uploading, their local copy to the central repository. As part of the file check-in process, most source control tools prompt the developer to enter any comments about changes made to the file.

Change tracking
Source control systems keep track of the changes made in a file when it's checked in. This allows developers to reconstruct earlier versions of the file, which is useful for recovering earlier work.

Difference checking
Source control software allows developers to compare versions of a file and review the differences between them.

History
Developers can examine the check-in history for each file, including the comments made by each developer when checking in the file.

What if my database is not under Source Control?

If your database is not versioned, there are several dangers awaiting to crash your project when you are least expecting it:

You cannot undelete removed database items other than using your backup and this task takes a lot of precious time. Assuming, that you had this object on backed up... But if you don't, or changed it after the backup has been created, there is no way to recover it. Unless you use SQL Source Control™ 2003, you may lose thousands of dollars.
A developer may make changes in, for example, a stored procedure code, save it to database and after a while he realizes, he made a terrible mistake, but without source control he cannot undo this change and revert to the last checked-in version. He has got to re-write all the lost code.

There are other reasons worth considering when talking about source control and versioning in SQL Server.

You cannot look at the history of the database object. With SQL Source Control™ 2003 you may check, what did a, for example, trigger looked like and use it in your current development.
You cannot track database schema and code changes.
You cannot enable teamwork development.

So what can I do?

The importance of source control and versioning cannot be overestimated. SQL Source Control™ 2003 is the only tool on the market that allows you to use source control and versioning feature, moreover - at very low cost.

SQL Source control 2004 Main

SQL Source control 2004 is electronically deliverd.