Subversion and the Dynamic Website

Hello Everyone,

I am new to Subversion (haven't even set up my first project yet!), but am
looking forward to using it in our small company.

Our immediate need is to version-control a dynamic (ColdFusion-based)
website.

After reading (and reading, and reading!), I have decided on this
layout/business process, in theory:

Platforms: Windows 2003/IIS/ColdFusion 6.1/SQL Server 2000. Will probably
instruct developers to use TortoiseSVN.

I plan on implementing the best-practice project/directory layout.

The TRUNK of the project would be served up by the web server as
dev.site.com.

A svn working copy of TRUNK is served up as www.site.com, and is "svn
updated" when dev.site.com is working properly after updates from anyone.

Developers can check out files or directories or entire trunk. This places
the files on their local file system.

We probably won't use branches right away, but might consider tagging of
"versions" of the website after any major changes.

If the developer has local install of the site, with web server/cf server
connected to the DEV snapshot database, they can modify and test code
locally, and commit back to the trunk when done.

If the developer does NOT have a local copy, they can modify code and commit
back to trunk, and use the dev.site.com to check their work.

A working dev site is therefore absolutely required prior to svn update of
TRUNK to the live site. All testing is done on dev.site.com by as many
people as possible, before deployment.

Database snapshots from LIVE to DEV can be done as-needed via DTS package,
run using a CF page. The database schema rarely if ever changes, and those
schema changes all go through one person.

Live site checkout, once dev.site.com is tested, will be made possible via a
call to a CF page that runs an svn update, which updates the live site's
code with the latest TRUNK.

This all seems like it will work great. Then there's the Big But:

What about dynamic content created by CMS users of the live site?
Specifically, the site we want to VC has code that allows content managers
to upload images, pdfs, and other "file-based data". I'm not sure how this
file-based data should relate to the VC system. The ultimate would be to
have the file-based data sync'd back to the dev/VC system.

I've read a lot on how to do this, and have gotten this far... But the
ability for the code itself to allow file uploads into directories shared BY
the code itself is the sticking point. Moving the storage location for this
file-based data is not an option unfortunately, as the developer has a lot
of dependencies between the code and the data file director(ies) that we
don't want to toy with and have to debug on a large scale.

So, gurus, how should we proceed... Or is Subversion not the right tool for
this job?

Thanks everyone!

marc

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Received on Wed Sep 20 17:27:11 2006