What is the purpose of Checkout when not using "Lock file" feature?

[mdel]

Hello,

I do understand in the scenario of locking file, checking out is the way to lock the file. But it is also possible to checkout a file without locking feature enable, but I do not understand why this would be interesting?

[MikeK]

> But it is also possible to checkout a file without locking feature enable, but I do not understand why this would be interesting?
I find this feature extremely useful at least in following scenarios:
1) When you debug a big project with an IDE (like Visual Studio) its debugger jumps across different source files that are opened in the IDS's editor. You may occasionally hit a wrong button and change a file unintentionally. The IDE will save it on the next debugger "step" command, patch the executable (if edit-and-continue feature is available in the IDE) and continue to work as if nothing has happened. During the check out workflow the IDE will ask you if you really want to check out and modify the file. Unfortunately this scenario does not work for Plastic VS integration -- they check out files automatically and silently and are not interested in fair supporting the scenario.
2) With the check out workflow your server will report you if a file is opened for editing by someone else. In some cases you may care and this is just a little helper.
3) The client software can quickly report you what file was changed. You need some file system watching facilities otherwise and they are not that common. Or was not common recently.

I believe one can invent a lot of other useful applications of the feature.

[calbzam]

Hi,

In the following links we also explains some more details of the checkout vs no checkout workflows:

https://www.plasticscm.com/book/#_readonly_and_writable

https://www.plasticscm.com/documentation/technical-articles/no-checkout-workflow

Regards,

Carlos.