subversion / cvs / source control of website code

[merk]

How many of you (who run a reasonable sized forum) use version control for your site?

I work on my site with 3 other developers and i just helped another person on my server setup a svn repository. It got me thinking, wouldnt a version control system help the development of code for my site?

Is it possible to do? Loading the code and working on it is fine, but actually updating the main page? Do you just check it out to the main web dir.. Is that it?

Is that how Jelsoft handles it? Any pointers?

Cheers.

[merk]

To add a bit more to the fire, if for example i wanted to add vbulletin to this repository for access to 2 people to update with hacks and mods.

If Jelsoft release 3.0.4 (or any updated version), what happens? Can i "merge" 3.0.4 into 3.0.3? How would a version control system deal with it?

*/me is totally lost in the CVS / SC world*

[ManagerJosh]

I'd be interested to see how this could be done as well.

[merk]

Ive been reading lots of documentation trying to work out if its possible, and it seems (while im not sure if this is the right feature) that svn merge will work.

Maybe in a 3.0.x -> 3.0.x+1 instance when there are lots of minor bug fixes with very few major changes to code. You would compare your hacked version to vanilla 3.0.x, with knowing those changes svn would then update vanilla 3.0.x to 3.0.x+1 and reapply your changes.

Thats as far as i can understand it. There is aparently alot of manual work if modifications clash, but that is to be expected.

[chrispadfield]

I used to use CVS for this, but since moving to subversion for source code management I havn't put the site into it yet. This is something I plan to do, and it is definitely recommended. There is a PEAR subversion class which I assume would make it easy to export the repository to your web root.

[Jerry]

Just about all the projects I've worked on have used a revsion system of some kind.

dev -> test -> stage -> live

etc

[merk]

Thanks.

The only thing im concerned about is when the base code of the products im using is updated.

Can anyone do a basic run through? (the examples are single file kind of thing). Is it better to just start the hacking again?

[chrispadfield]

I personally didn't put external apps (like say vbulletin) into my CVS, just my actual website. You could put them in, their wouldn't be a problem but you probably wouldn't want to deal with trying to merge two different vbulletin versions - there are too many differences for that to be something that would be easy to handle. For a v3.0.0 - v3.0.1 it would work fine, but not for v3.0 to v3.1.

Your best bet is to check out the subversion website, and download tortoise SVN which is a windows client to SVN.

[merk]

Ive already got SVN happening

Basically you're saying you could "upgrade" the branch if the upgrade was a minor one (3.x.n to 3.x.n+1)?

But not a major version? (I didnt expect to be able to do that)

[Jerry]

I found this a good read about cvs and projects . Helped me out with some projects.

[merk]

Thanks.

I initially saw a harry potter header and im like "what the.....?", ill see if i can source that locally.

[daemon]

Both CVS and SVN have the ability to track third-party sources (generally called "vendors"). When I was writing hacks for phpBB I used vendor information to do what you want to do. I've only tried doing this with CVS as since my switch to SVN I haven't had a need to do this.

I suggest reading the vendor tracking information for SVN or CVS depending on which source control system you're using.

[merk]

Thanks.

[Marsupilami]

I use CVS and Borland CodeWright for developing and maintaining websites.

I can checkout a webpage as a project anywhere i please, have full version control, can branch and merge, and can synchronize to both local test servers and target servers.

Simple, yet very powerful.

[dwh]

It would be cool if vB would do some kind of open source style project...where outside developers / hackers would be invited to put their hacks into SVN and the best of the changes would be merged into the codebase... I know vb is commercial so I'm not saying that they should make it free...just that it can try to leverage the large community of hackers already at work who would agree to provide the code under certain terms.