On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 5:27 PM, Pavel Lyalyakin
<pavel.lyalyakin_at_visualsvn.com> wrote:
...
> I've spent some time to materialize the Quick Start document that I
> think will be helpful for novice SVN users. At the moment, it provides
> the most basic guidance which should be enough for "quick start".
> However, it lacks "Viewing the history of changes" section that is not
> ready yet. As of merging, I'd better provide a link to relevant
> SVNBook sections. Merging is not a basic topic and should not be
> described in a Quick Start guide, IMO.
Hi Pavel,
Nice! I've done a quick scan and it looks good in general. I'll try to
go through it in detail this weekend, if I find some time.
Your "quick start" is much larger than the old one (so we have to be
careful that it's still as short as possible, to be "quick"), but I
think it's good that you added some explanation of the basic concepts,
and try to take the user along the most basic commands. The old "quick
start" was more in the style of "here is some bait, don't be afraid to
give it a try, and look for more docs". But now that I've read your
patch (diagonally), I like it.
> I'm attaching two patches. I would greatly appreciate a review,
> comments and suggestions. Here we go:
> 1. svn-quick-start-eol-native-v1.patch.txt
> Log Message:
> [[[
> Add missing svn:eol-style=native property to publish/quick-start.html
> ]]]
Sure, of course.
> 2. svn-updated-quick-start-v1.patch.txt
> Log Message:
> [[[
> * publish/quick-start.html:
> Updating the SVN Quick Start guide as suggested in
> https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/ea3462042131baac9c702fd4f19ae292c25ef20527d27db449e90f0e@%3Cdev.subversion.apache.org%3E
> ]]]
Okay, I'll try to go through it in detail.
>> > The question is: what kind of topics should the quick start page cover?
>> >
>> > My idea is that the page should provide task-based guidance for SVN end user on
>> > how to
>> > * checkout a working copy,
>> > * update the working copy,
>> > * modify the data in the working copy and commit it,
>> > * make a branch or tag,
>> > * perform a simple merge.
>>
>> Sounds terrific.
>>
>> The current quickstart page focuses on "how do I quickly set up a my
>> own little repository, locally (with file:///) and put some stuff in
>> there". Like a beginning user / student / ... perhaps would like to
>> version his own files. I think it's a good way to introduce the
>> concepts of repository and working copy, and help them get started by
>> versioning some of their own files locally.
>
> SVNBook has a High-Speed Tutorial that provides such instructions:
> http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.8/svn.intro.quickstart.html
Yes, I know. But still, I think it's important to have quick
instructions on our own webpages. Also, the quickstart in the book
only shows unix-style examples, and our quickstart page shows both
unix and windows examples. I think that's important.
>> Do you think you can start from that "setup", and continue with the
>> topics you listed above? Or would you like to take a different angle?
>
> I'm thinking about taking a different angle. I think that the document
> should assume that a remote Subversion repository is already in place
> and the user simply wants to start working with the existing versioned
> data. Or he wants to import non-versioned data to the new remote
> repository or repository sub-path.
>
> In my experience, a beginning user or a student already has a
> repository that he access via HTTP(S) or svnserve protocol. For
> example, a first-year student gains access to his private SVN
> repository and never has to use file:// schema or `svnadmin` tool.
> There is another case, when a user should first request to create a
> repository for him or for his project (here is an example:
> http://information-technology.web.cern.ch/book/how-start-working-svn/requesting-new-svn-repository).
> He won't use file:// schema and `svnadmin` in this case, too.
Hm, okay, I guess you're right concerning "most beginners already have
a server setup for them". OTOH, those are the users that often have
local people to help them, and documentation / faqs / ... written by
their administrators tuned to the local setup.
So I'm not sure about dropping the "how to make your own local
repository with file:// and track your own personal files" entirely.
It's a good way to get a bit of introduction to the repository side of
the story too (and it's a bit of a neglected use case of svn: track
your own files locally). Maybe we can add an extra section (after the
ones you already added) about this. Somewhat optional, in the sense of
"if you're interested to set up your own local repository to
version-control your own files, here is how to do it". Just thinking
out loud ...
--
Johan
Received on 2017-09-15 22:58:04 CEST