[thelist] CVS/SCM System for Webdevelopment

[Mike Migurski]

> >   The part that I'm really after is the ability to build websites from
> > a source tree.  Sources would be .php, .jsp, .js, etc. files, and a
> > command would (a) grab the latest branch/version of these files (b)
> > automatically create a directory under a web root and finally (c)
> > "build" if necessary -- what I mean by that is change paths,
> > references, and so on so that the website is browsable.

Realistically, I think you'll find that you will be updating an existing
installed website more often than building one out from a clean source
checkout. Updates and changes (especially during development) are much
more frequent than fresh deployments, so any working method that allows
you to work with files that are live yet still tied to the source
repository is a winner.

I use a combination of CVS and Make for this - the live site is a CVS
checkout, and a Makefile has rules for building it: creating temp
directories, or search/replace on config files. It has the nice side
effect of allowing me to bring the whole thing up-to-speed at any time,
without killing temp files that aren't part of the repository:

	cd /path/to/docroot
	cvs up -Pd
	make

> At least Subversion allows you to "hook" scripts at various stages. I
> use it at "post-commit" (after a succesful commit) to check the branch
> and update the directory under web root with the latest changes (update
> is faster then checkout). You can let the script do anything you want,
> including the changes you mention above. See
> http://svnbook.red-bean.com/svnbook/ch05s02.html#svn-ch-5-sect-2.1

FYI, CVS can do this too:
	http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/cvsbook.html#commitinfo

Subversion was developed explicitly as a drop-in CVS replacement, and is
intended to duplicate all of CVS' functionality while avoiding its
drawbacks. From a repository adminstration standpoint, I think it falls
kinda flat, but YMMV.

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