RE: development of externals?

I can speak from the software development standpoint. Shares, to which
svn:externals are similar, present a high likelyhood that changes made
to shared files will have a negative impact on other projects that share
those files. This probability can be reduced with very good
communication, but you still run the risk of breaking another
application by changing something it expects to use.
 
I strongly encourage you to consider a binary compatability model for
shared code. Manage changes to the code like an independant project and
release binaries to the projects that use them. Those projects can
choose to use the newer version, and fall back if there are problems.
Of course, it all depends on how much disruption your teams want to
accept.
 

--
David 
________________________________
	From: Wolfgang.Stoecher@skf.com
[mailto:Wolfgang.Stoecher@skf.com] 
	Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 7:54 AM
	To: users@subversion.tigris.org
	Subject: development of externals?
	
	
	Hello, 
	
	we have several files that are shared among several projects.
Currently they live in a separate path and are linked to the actual
software projects in the IDE. 
	Now I am thinking of using the externals-feature of SVN to make
sure that everybody has the right (currently always: latest) version of
the shared files without having to inform everyone, when to update the
shared files. 
	But does this still allow to further develop the shared files
from within one of our software projects? What is the best practice for
working with externals, especially when thinking of also further
developping the shared files? Is there a way of doing this without an
additional test-project for the shared files? 
	
	thank you, 
	
	Wolfgang
	
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