Discuss: Collaborate and Connect with Subversion

by Ryan Irelan

21 SvnX : An open source mac GUI front end to Subvers

You listed Version which is a proprietary software in beta version….

SvnX is a great open source solution and definitely usable.

http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/svnx/

I would have expect that ALA proposed open source alternatives to proprietary ones (at least both).

posted at 11:54 pm on July 3, 2008 by Hadrien David

Thanks for the note on SvnX, Hadrien. I do know about it and that it is open source, however, in my use—and by some of the team at Airbag—we found it extremely difficult to use. In fact, that’s the reason I just had the people I work with learn the small handful of SVN commands on the CLI because it was actually easier than trying to navigate SvnX.

There was no conspiracy to eliminate open source software, I just can’t recommend it as a application to use. Versions (and now Cornerstone) are much better choices on the Mac. However, I still recommend people first learn how to use SVN on the CLI. I feel it offers a greater understanding of how SVN works.

posted at 04:33 am on July 4, 2008 by Ryan Irelan

23 SVN with eclipse and Aptana

I’m a ‘back-end’ developer and use SVN (having moved from the evil Microsoft VSS). Personally after getting my head around a few concepts I’ve never had any issues with it (not sure why there are lots of moans about merging problems – it’s really quite good). Choosing a version control system shouldn’t be a big beauty contest – if it works (and svn does a fine job) stop comparing it with all of the other shiny and new version control systems.

To the point of my post – at work I use Eclipse for Java development with Subclipse which builds version control right into the editor. You can browse repositories, do diffs and pretty much anything you can do with Versions or Tortoise. It’s excellent. At home I also use Aptana on a mac (as I do more script work at home) which is built on eclipse, so I can use the same Subclipse plugin at home too. Eclipse/Aptana are written in Java so run on macs and PC’s and are open source – so it’s a great editing tool all round for me. It’s flexible too – you can install eclipse and get an Aptana plugin or just install Aptana on its own. I highly recommend it for back-end server-side development and front-end web development needs and especially recommend it for simple SVN integration.

posted at 12:46 pm on July 4, 2008 by Matt Newboult

24 Eclipse / SvnX

Ok, I understand your point on SvnX and I agree with learning people to use svn CLI to better understand Subversion. (Anyway, my comment was a bit subversive :D )

I do also use Eclipse which is to my opinion one of the best IDE ever which integrates all languages and tools (because of a pluginable architecture).

Eclipse (with Aptana , Subclipse , Flex , Sysdeo , Mylyn plugins) permits me to code front-end (AJAX/HTML/Javascript/Flex/AS3) and back end (Java EE/Tomcat/PHP), linked with scm (subversion – trac – bugzilla – Jira ), and also debug the whole application (backend + frontend) in the same environment which is one of several added values (like being a platform independent software).

BUT, it is quite developer oriented and I would not expect from a web designer to be able to use such a tool in a natural manner.

Anyway, thank you for the article on subversion. I know so many web agencies which work without any versioning tools. At end of projects, there are always file like final_4_f.new.psd and it always got on everybody’s nerves to search for the good version.

Questions :
Do they teach about versioning in web design schools ?
Don’t you think that any computing related studies should include a course on versioning and how to work better/faster ?

posted at 07:35 pm on July 4, 2008 by Hadrien David

25 RE: ECLIPSE / SVNX

Questions : Do they teach about versioning in web design schools ? Don’t you think that any computing related studies should include a course on versioning and how to work better/faster ?

That’s a great question. I didn’t go to school for new media or web design, so I don’t know. My guess would be that most schools don’t teach it. But I’d encourage others to chime in on that.

I think a course on workflow would be helpful and that should include talking about version control.

posted at 09:01 pm on July 4, 2008 by Ryan Irelan

26 RE: ECLIPSE / SVNX

I think a course on workflow would be helpful and that should include talking about version control.

+1
That is what I should have write :)
Learning versioning without any workflow concerns is irrelevant.

posted at 10:21 pm on July 4, 2008 by Hadrien David

27 svn very well integrated with many other tools

one of the main advantages of subversion for me is that it is well integrated with most tools that i use:
Editor: BBEdit has built in svn-support so I can commit, diff, merge and view logs from right within the editor. The same holds true for eclipse of course.
Project mangement: we work with freelancers from all over the world (germany, india, italy, us) for coding and webdesign (yes we are one of those small web-outfits…) and use trac for managing our projects. Trac is also very well integrated, so you basiclly have one website per project where you can see all the tickets that are being worked on, and a very convenient view of the project’s history in the codebase. All svn commits are neatly listed and displayed with all the code changes instantly visible.
This setup (svn, trac, eclipse, other editors) has turned out to be a very successful workflow for a number of projects from small to large in the past year so I can highly recommend svn even while it may not be bleeding edge. It just gets the job done. Also: al of our freelancers already used and knew it, so no problems with integrating new members into projects.

posted at 03:40 pm on July 5, 2008 by Reinhard Gloggengiesser

28 Count me in as another vote for mercurial

I’ve switched all my personal stuff to mercurial – when I’m away from internet, it’s nice to still be able to commit changes in my local working repo, then push them back to my main repository when I get back to the world.

Having come from RCS -> CVS -> SVN, the fact that most Mercurial commands have the same syntax as the SVN ones makes me happy.

posted at 04:57 am on July 7, 2008 by Joe Block

29 SmartSVN

I used SmartSVN for the Mac for years, until I switched over to git. It has a good interface and wizard for connecting to new repos. If you are using git, I highly recommend using GitHub.

posted at 06:40 am on July 7, 2008 by Nick French