CVS - teh rock!!!!

[Gomer_X]

I've been using CVS on my home server for a while, and was glad to hear Linc talking about it on the last show. If you've ever worked on a project, saved a file, then wanted to go back to an old version you just saved over, you need CVS. I keep several web projects in CVS. I can check out a complete version of a project on a laptop and take it with me to work on. I can check out a version on my home web server to test it. I can check out a working copy on my work machine, and just wipe it out when I'm finished because I know it's saved. It also keeps all your important stuff in one place for easy backup. I can work from anywhere and never worry about which version of a file is current.

I agree the documentation is lacking. There doesn't seem to be much available besides the manual, and what's needed is a quick start guide. The man page is also overkill if you just want to do something simple.

Here's what I've found to be effective once the CVS server is up and running:

type 'cvs afgjhafgh' (or some other garbage)

Instead of the help message, which isn't too helpful, you'll get a list of common commands with brief descriptions. From there I can usually figure it out by trial and error, and if not I at least know what to search for in the man page.

[Linc]

I've been using CVS on my home server for a while, and was glad to hear Linc talking about it on the last show. If you've ever worked on a project, saved a file, then wanted to go back to an old version you just saved over, you need CVS. I keep several web projects in CVS. I can check out a complete version of a project on a laptop and take it with me to work on. I can check out a version on my home web server to test it. I can check out a working copy on my work machine, and just wipe it out when I'm finished because I know it's saved. It also keeps all your important stuff in one place for easy backup. I can work from anywhere and never worry about which version of a file is current.

I agree the documentation is lacking. There doesn't seem to be much available besides the manual, and what's needed is a quick start guide. The man page is also overkill if you just want to do something simple.

Here's what I've found to be effective once the CVS server is up and running:

type 'cvs afgjhafgh' (or some other garbage)

Instead of the help message, which isn't too helpful, you'll get a list of common commands with brief descriptions. From there I can usually figure it out by trial and error, and if not I at least know what to search for in the man page.

Woohoo! Thanks for the tip Gomer!

[thetza]

Though CVS is the 800-pound gorilla of versioning, any new project at work I have influence over uses subversion (svn) instead; its very similar to CVS, but it has file/directory versioning (thanks to its Berkeley DB backend, as opposed to CVS's RCS), handles binary/unicode better, and has transactions. Oreilly book is free online as well. Overall, I'd say its at least better suited for smaller projects. check it out.

[Gomer_X]

Though CVS is the 800-pound gorilla of versioning, any new project at work I have influence over uses subversion (svn) instead; its very similar to CVS, but it has file/directory versioning (thanks to its Berkeley DB backend, as opposed to CVS's RCS), handles binary/unicode better, and has transactions. Oreilly book is free online as well. Overall, I'd say its at least better suited for smaller projects. check it out.

I had considered SVN versus CVS, but there just didn't seem to be enough improvement to warrant the switch. There are so many projects designed to be CVS replacements that are CVS compatible, but few have made any headway. CVS is still the default most places.

So I agree that Subversion is probably better, but I chose CVS instead. At least it's pretty easy to switch a CVS repository to SVN if I ever have the need, but for now CVS is more than enough.