Friday, November 20, 2009

Local Subversion

I installed Subversion and TortoiseSVN on my development machine a week ago today and I must say I am very pleased with the results.  Easy to do, easy to use.

I would highly suggest using Subversion locally if you are not already. The ability to change any file, then commit or revert is very nice when you want to make a bunch of changes but not sure if you will use them again. 

TortoiseSVN also comes with a diff and merge tool that is easy to use. The Diff tool can also be used with files that are not in a repository.


Serena Version Manager

Now…….the development shop I work at uses Serena Version Manager.  So did the previous company I worked at.  I’ve actually used Version Manager for a long time now (not by choice) and even though it’s undergone a lot of name changes, it has increased in performance over the past 6-8 years.  I still don’t like it.  It’s very slow and works as a tool, but it would not be my first choice.  I’ve used CVS and Subversion and like them both, both for ease of use, power, and definitely great speed.   I don’t yet have a preference over CVS vs. Subversion, but perhaps someday I will.  :)

Why do I mention this?  Well, I still have to use VM for the projects I’m on.  I sync my local environment every night (using Hudson/Ant), then I can visually tell in Windows Explorer (because of TortoiseSVN) which items have changed.  I can then revert them back or Commit the changes to Subversion.  

What if a file changes in VM and I’ve been working on it locally?  Well my VM get only updates the read-only files on my machine.  I still have to check the local error log for “Could not complete the action because the workfile already exists and cannot be overwritten.” meaning that a newer revision was found in VM and the local copy couldn’t update because it’s writeable. 

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