Finally, a good Subversion client for Mac OS X


If you don’t have a Mac, or don’t know what SVN is, please accept my apologies for this very directed post. To the one guy remaining, rejoice:

For the longest time, there has been no good SVN interface available on the Mac. Windows folks had TortoiseSVN, and Linux folks wouldn’t be caught dead using anything other than command line tools (or, git, for that matter). So, everybody was happy but us Mac folks.

A program called “Versions” has been available for a while, but it, sadly, epitomizes the style over substance sin that is so prevalent on the Mac. It’s got a beautiful interface, but it’s an interface to very little. Namely, it doesn’t support merging or branching, which is pretty much the most important reason for using a versioning system like SVN. If you’re not branching and merging, you might as well just use a good backup system, because that’s pretty much all you’re using SVN for at that point.

So, I was very excited to find “Cornerstone,” which was recently upgraded to support the slickest SVN interface I’ve seen on any platform. It’s as pretty as “Versions” and as powerful (if not moreso) than TortoiseSVN. It’s merge facility is the best approach I’ve seen, for example. It’s intuitive, and as you adjust the settings it automatically performs a trial merge and gives you the results in real time. Awesome.

They have a two-week trial, which is more than enough to get a feel for the product, it’s so simple and well-executed.

(By the way, they aren’t giving me anything for this. I wish they were, but I don’t have that kind of juice.)

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3 responses to “Finally, a good Subversion client for Mac OS X”

  1. Thanks for posting the review. It sounds like a nice client.

    I write software for a living so I should be willing to pay for software. Oh wait, I do pay for software. Sometimes. Some categories though I just refuse to pay for. Pretty interfaces to free systems is one of them. Perhaps because 95% of the awesome of SVN is SVN itself as opposed to any fancy interface – I am not willing to pay for a SVN client regardless of how great it is.

  2. I do trust all of the concepts you’ve offered in your post.
    They are really convincing and will certainly work.

    Nonetheless, the posts are very brief for beginners.
    May you please extend them a bit from subsequent time?

    Thank you for the post.

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