Re: CVS and multiple platforms - version conflicts, features available etc.

[ADFH]

> > Right now, an almost anarchic situation exists where there is no
> Look on the bright side.  There are very few bad choices here.

Hehehe - true :)

> and CVS doesn't track that at all well.  If you have a stable
> directory structure, that's no problem at all.

This I think I'll have to work through with the graphic designers.

> edit facility is overkill.  I've worked happily in a shop with a
> few dozen developers without using any such feature.  It usually
> worked well, and in the cases where it didn't I didn't see that
> any sort of locking would have helped much.  The problems were
> simply that the situation, and hence the solution, was messy.

Basically in this situation there are management, programmers and
graphic designers. In specific project at present, programmers using JSP
and Java and tweaking some of the HTML. The graphic designers use
DreamWeaver.. Problems arise on occasion when programmers edit inside
templated areas of HTML files and then graphic designers push out a
change to templates.

Whilst programmers shouldn't be editing templated sections without
editing template (or getting designers to do it) it would be nice to be
able to say "ok - the template change borked it, but if we go back to a
prior file version, we can rescue the code and then work it into a
template-safe version". Hence need for some CVS stuff - also, if people
could be kind of reminded by using edit etc. (by having files read-only
by default) it would assist in the behaviour modification :)

What did confuse me, though, is that the current CVS server doesn't seem
to recognise the watch/unwatch/edit etc. commands. Is there some special
configuration I need to do to get these to work in a repository?

> All of which have several clients.  I am most familiar with the
> WinCVS/MacCVS/gCVS clients, which as a group will run on all the
> systems you've got.  This has the advantage of providing a mostly
> common front end for your shop.

Consistency definitely a good thing in this environment. I only work two
days a week for them, and if hell breaks loose on a day I'm not in the
office, being able to have a consistent environment would be good :)

Might look into running TightVNC over SSH.

> solution now (or, preferably, sooner), don't wait for it.  The
> authors are planning to have an update path from CVS, so you
> could consider a changeover later.

Cool :)

> CVS works pretty well for that.  It is certainly reliable enough
> for business-critical tasks (provided you stick to client-server
> access, and it sounds like that is indeed the plan).

Oh yeah - most of the people don't have a clue how to use *nix - the
more the repository is viewed as something that exists through the CVS
client and not through direct filesystem access, the better :)

The actual server sits in the corner of the office with no screen and no
keyboard - I administer it remotely over SSH. Better it's seen as a
black box. I plan on cron'ing a bz2/gzip tar file transfer of repository
to 2K backup server when implementation is complete.

Again, a single file which doesn't offer easy fiddling to the
uninitiated - and protects file perms etc. :)

> As I said, WinCVS and MacCVS work well and share a common code base,
> although the Windows port has moved ahead of the Mac port.  If you
> have users who move between Mac and Windows, this is a definite
> advantage.  Even if you don't, it still reduces the support burden
> a bit.  There are plenty of other Windows clients, but few other
> Mac clients.

Well - three designers use Macs, boss uses Mac, one designer uses PC,
three programmers using PCs.

> You might also want to look at Java clients.  Since MacOS 9 is
> behind most other platforms in Java support, and is going to stay
> that way, make sure to test the Java clients on your Mac.

Yeah - I tried to run Mindterm on one of the MacOS 9 (Mrrmm.. OS9 - reminds
me of my TRS-80) clients.

> My list of CVS clients is at: 
> http://www.thornleyware.com/scm/clients/index.html
> It isn't necessarily complete, but it hits most of them.

Thanks!