>Ok, forget the software being used (Vault) for now. Craig says they don't use branching, and Tracy says they use it just fine. Let's say we do use branching so we can keep our current production code (bug fixed, etc.) separate from projects. What is the best way to implement that? The developers all work remotely and access a server at the company location. Any thoughts welcome because I am getting really (really) tired of having to constantly reconcile our code manually and risk bad code getting out the door.

Practice makes perfect. Get used to it.

Look, the question is philosophical. You have created two versions of something. What do you want to rely on - software which will try to be smart and merge [the text versions of] them for you, or do you want to be in control and know exactly what's going on? I, for one, have found that software can't be that smart - even Beyond Compare (or Vault's diff client) will find differences in wrong places, and suggest ridiculous things.

There's no other AI available nowadays, but diff the text (.prg or scctextX.prg generated text file) and judge for yourself which changes need to be migrated into the new version and which not.