[thelist] Subversion - multiple users on same working copy?

[Mattias Thorslund]

Ian,

No, you're not crazy. It's much better with SOME version control than
none at all.

Some quick ideas (not mutually exclusive):

Could everyone publish to an internal, testing site? Content could then
be pushed from there nightly (or whatever).  The current situation,
where people edit the production files directly, seems too risky to me.

The PHP programmers might be able to work on their local copies, while
giving content editors access to files/folders they edit on a shared
working copy. To get the updates from everyone else, the standard "svn
update" procedure applies.

Mattias


Ian Anderson wrote:
> Hi listees,
>
> I am considering introducing Subversion as a revision control system at
> one of my client sites.
>
> They are an online magazine, and currently everyone modifies a single
> set of files on a shared volume before upload to staging; the shared 
> volume constitutes the sole master copy of the site. The users are 
> content editors, not web designers or developers, and consequently have 
> little technical knowledge.
>
> Ideally, we'd have everyone working on local copies of the project,
> updating a central test server to unit-test files, and have a revision
> control system supporting the local working copies. However, we don't 
> think the users in question would bear the responsibility of managing 
> their own working copies properly, or of committing changes to the 
> repository without great difficulty.
>
> Tortoise SVN makes SVN bearable to use, but the potential for problems 
> is fairly limitless.
>
> Consequently, I am considering the following, less satisfactory
> arrangement: a single working copy of the site on the central
> shared drive - as it is now but under version control - with updates and 
> commits to the repository being managed by one or two technical people.
>
> To be honest, most of the risk to the codebase comes from us technical 
> types, who are editing PHP core scripts without a safety net at the 
> moment; the editors are adding new pages all the time, but are much less 
> likely to break something important than we are... :)
>
> Has anyone any experience of using Subversion or a similar VCS in this 
> sort of way, or any guidance to offer? In short, am I crazy to even 
> consider this?
>
> I am aware of the risk of editing collisions where two people open and 
> edit the same file concurrently, and because of this I am considering 
> rolling out Dreamweaver to the editors and using its own 
> Checkin/Checkout file locking system in addition to putting the shared 
> site under version control through SVN.
>
> Views and/or (mild) abuse welcome
>
> Many thanks
>
> Ian
>
>