On 4/9/07, Matt Sickler <crazyfordynamite@gmail.com> wrote:
> subversion was meant to version source code, not distribute notes and
> binaries another tool such as rsync would be better at the latter
This statement is almost completely wrong. Subversion was made to
handle binaries internally exactly the same as text files, so its very
good at tracking binary files. To take advantage of any concurrent
edit capability, you need a merge tool for any given binary type. For
example, TortoiseSVN now comes with diff/merge tools and scripts that
work with several common binary file types, like bmp, xls, ods, odt,
doc, etc. Otherwise, you should set the "svn:needs-lock" property on
any binary type that doesn't have an existing merge tool, so you don't
get multiple editors stomping on each other's work. That is pretty
easy to do using auto-props.
The file types that Subversion (and any system that uses delta
compression in the repository) doesn't track very efficiently are
compressed files. You should leave any compression as a step done
after compiling from repo sources. Certain forms of compiled binaries
are thus better to track outside of the repository. If an executable,
for example, compiles consistently and quickly on everyone's
workstations, there's no point to tracking it on a repository. Setting
up a post-update tool, to create compressed binary types from other
source types upon update, might be a better long term solution. For
example, you could write a batch script that creates jpegs from
updated bmp sources, mpeg3s from aif, xvid movies from raw tiff
frames, etc. In other cases, non-version-tracking tools like rsync
might be more appropriate for distributing built files.
Source files, in whatever form, should always be handled by your
version control system. There is no reason to compress source files --
good version control software should handle that for you, like
Subversion does via xdelta. Built files are the only area worth
debating.
:) Jred
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Received on Tue Apr 10 21:52:22 2007