Re: bringing version control into the company [semi-OT]

Just a few thoughts based on my experience using subversion in our
office:

This one time, at band camp, Christian Sauer wrote:
>* "I don't want to do anything differently than I do now"
>* "I don't want to use another program for managing the files"

Revision control is always different than non-revision control. That's
just a hurdle they're going to have to get over. I doubt their existing
tools will mesh with subversion (though they may talk to other RC tools)
so again that's something they'll have to meet you halfway on.

It's a learning curve -- if yuo're not doing revision control and you
move to revision control, there's a whole new world of things to be
aware of.

>* "I don't want to work on the files locally, I want to work on the DEV
>server directly"

Our site lives in subversion, and in that repo there's a script that
launches apache and postgres as the user running the script, and fills
the schema and points apache to the working copy, and then prompts with
a url to visit to test the site.

There's another part of the build process that does the live rollout.

This way everyone can make sure work is being checking stuff in and that
things are tested in an identical environment, and it also makes
publishing the live site very easy.

I don't know if it'll be suitable but that's how we use it.

>* "Why do I have to make a log file for EVERY change?"

So they can find the point in time that they broke something or fixed
something, because in a weeks time you're not going to remember the
revision number.

Of course there's nothing forcing them to write a log for every change;
I delight in my bosses commits to the repo that merely say "updates" or
"look at the patch". Let them be aware it is so others can see what has
changed. With designers, that may be difficult :-) I'd go easy on this
one, trial it for a while and if people see the need for extensive log
messages then they'll come.

-- 
jaq_at_spacepants.org                           http://spacepants.org/jaq.gpg
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