SVN workflow, LAMP

Question

Hi All,

I am trying to implement some method to the madness here. We have three devs,(Me + 2), I have tortoise SVN running on my windows machine, the other two dont do revision control- yet!

We have a single server, with a single checkout for each site that that we all work on (we all work on the same checkout).

I am trying to think what the most effecient setup for us is?

SVN server I guess should me moved to a location so we can all access, and we should probably all have our own ~/public_html for checkouts (so no more sharing checkouts - is sharing a checkout bad practice?)

anyhoo, just wanted some feedback, I know there is not a one size fit's all as far as development processes go, but I just wanted to make sure there is nothing inherently flawed with my plan..

Answer 1

SVN in an Apache Server shared via DAV (no need for a 'public_html', just either Allow from All to the repo location or create a user/pass combination for each developer which is fairly easy and better from an accountability POV) where everyone can access and commit to via Tortoise or whatever other SVN client looks good enough for a start to me.

Don't forget to do regular backups of your repository.

Answer 2

Sharing a checkout is a bad idea. The whole idea of a "working copy" is that you can do your work without interference, and check in once it is in a functional state again (i.e., have any release checked out from the repository compile cleanly and at least pass cursory checks).

You can take that one level further in giving each developer a seperate branch to work in, merging back into trunk when satisfied with the work within that branch.

I am not clear about the specifics of your setup, but at the very least have each developer work in his own working copy.

Answer 3

If I understand correctly, you all are working on the same checkout copy, shared somehow, and then you commit the other developers work...

I think that each developer should work on his own local "working copy", running a local server on each developer machine.

The way you are working right now is not giving you all the advantages that source control is supposed to.

For example you have no way to see who made specific changes to a file, and your developers have no way to track even their own changes...

I recommend you to push your team to use source control properly, there are so much benefits, and I'm sure, you won't go back...

Answer 4

The point of version control is that everyone checks out their own working copy. So yes, sharing checkouts is bad practice.

Simple strategy for web development could so that everyone has their own working copy on their own machine where they apply changes. After each check-in you run a script that does svn export to the test server.