RE: Distributed Development Environments

[Jim.Hyslop]

address@hidden wrote:
> "Having two geographically distributed development center" is 
> one of our
> requirements. And guess what! The two teams will be working 
> on the same project.
> We would like to use CVS to manage our source code:
> 
> Option 1:
> Create one and only one master repository. One of the teams 
> connects locally and
> the other one connects remotely (local and remote, in terms 
> of networking).
> 
> Option 2:
> Create two repositories, one on each center, and use 
> replication. In this case,
> the replication has to be smart in order to prevent data 
> losses. We need merging
> and conflict management.

It depends on how you can structure your project and work flow.

We have geographically dispersed development teams. On some projects, we can
structure the project so that all the work on one file, or a set of files,
is performed in one location, and so we divide the project into sub-projects
or subdirectories, and designate one team as the "master". The other teams
mirror to the master's directory.

On other projects, though, the work is much more integrated, so we cannot
use mirroring. In those projects, all teams use a single repository.

Since the mirroring happens outside of CVS's control, you have no way for
CVS to resolve any conflicts introduced by people in two different locations
checking in the same file at approximately the same time (within the window
of your mirror updates).

-- 
Jim Hyslop
Senior Software Designer
Leitch Technology International Inc. (http://www.leitch.com)
Columnist, C/C++ Users Journal (http://www.cuj.com/experts)