Subversion

Bill Sconce sconce at in-spec-inc.com
Fri Dec 17 14:42:00 EST 2004


On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:25:44 -0500
Fred <puissante at biz.puissante.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2004-12-16 at 09:42, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
> ...
> > On a more Linux-y angle, has anyone tried out Trac 
> > (http://trac.edgewall.com/
> > <http://freshmeat.net/redir/trac/48128/url_homepage/trac.edgewall.com>), 
> > a sort of ticket tracker/front end for Subversion.  I'm interested in 
> > possibly giving it a go, but between Subversion, which I've never set 
> > up, and Trac on top of it, it'll be a bit of an investment, and was 
> > hoping someone had some input.
> 
> Speaking of Subversion, I'd love to hear from those who use it on a
> regular basis what REAL (read: beyond the hype) advantages it has to
> offer over CVS. I've grown quite fond of CVS, but it has its limits. I
> understand converting from CVS to Subversion can be a bit tricky,
> especially if you have forks in the development tree.

I use it every day.  I set up my first repository for a client in
Manchester earlier this year (circa April) and pretty quickly fell in
love with it.  I've only used the svn: protocol, and not the http:/
Apache protocol, because all of my needs have been local.

Since that first project I've used Subversion for everything - let's
see, that's four projects so far.

The advantages (from my experience):  atomic commits and versioning,
and the ability to easily move/rename/restructure the tree.

Limitation on my recommendations:  only small developer communities
(three developers maximum so far);  Subverison is NOT BitKeeper -
that is, there are differing design approaches between something like
Subversion and something like BitKeeper or Arch, particularly with
respect to how you want to handle merging.

One of parameters for many people may be the learning curve.  Subversion's
learning curve is relatively easy (especially for anyone with familiarity
with CVS).

I have used CVS (never again!), but none of my experience involved a
conversion from CVS to something else, which appears to be one of your
points of consideration.

(I've also used a bunch of other version-control systems, including some
that are unnameable on this list.)  Subversion has been the best so far.

HTH,

Bill



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