The book is structured in three parts. The introduction describes some of the basic concepts, notation, and terminology used in SCM. The second part is the most important and presents the catalogue of patterns. And the last part of the book contains a list of resources and an appendix with tool support for SCM patterns which is very helpful.

Some of the patterns presented in the book are:

-Mainline

-Active Developement Line

-Private Workspace

-Repository

-Private System Build

-Integration Build

-Third Party Codeline

-Smoke Test

-Unit Test

-Regression Test

-Release Line

-Task Branch

Each pattern is presented in the following way:

-A title that describes what the pattern builds.

-A picture that can serve as a metaphor for the pattern.

-A paragraph describing the context of the pattern.

-A concise statement of the problem that the pattern solves.

-A detailed problem description illustrating the trade-offs, some dead-end solutions, and the issues that need to be resolved.

-A short summary of the solution.

-A description of the solution in detail.

-A discussion of unresolved issues and how to address them

Although I have been working for a long time with several of these patterns, I usually named them with different names which sometimes didn't helped me to communicate with other developers.

I think one of the most important aspects of patterns is that they help to build a common vocabulary which improves the comunication and help teams to be more productive. Thats why I like this book very much, it helps to build a common vocabulary by identifying and catalogue these SCM patterns.

This book is usefull for any software developer (C#, JAVA, C++, VB).