[Phpwm] CVS

[Katherine Goodwin]

Hi Peter (and all),
Peter Graham wrote :
> Do any of you use CVS when developing your sites?
>  
> Majority of time I am programming on my own, so I program a site on my
> dev server then SCP the changes across to the live server when I am
> happy with it. However they are two other members of staff that
> occasionally make small alterations to the sites I work on, this can
> become a bit of a nightmare is all 3 people end up modifying the same
> pages/files at the same time.
>  

In this instance(and in fact most of the time when you're developing
anything significant) I would recommend a version control system.

There's more to it than just helping you to manage concurrent access to
files - a version control system can help you to develop more
effectively - for example, it removes a lot of the temptation to leave
commented out code in "just in case" or to keep copies of files when you
make significant changes, in case things break (both things that I've
seen regularly during my time at university working as a teaching
assistant and more recently when working on existing code for customers)

> I haven't used CVS since the 2nd year of University (3 years ago) so
> only have a vague recollection of what it does and how it works, would
> any of you recommend using it for developing PHP sites with multiple
> developers, or do you have any alternative solutions to my problem?
I would recommend using subversion - very much like CVS, but easier to
use, with Trac on top (web based tools for managing your repository and
project)

see 
http://subversion.tigris.org
and 
http://edgewall.com/trac

Hope this helps

Kat 
> Look forward to hearing your replies,
> 
> Pete Graham