Best practices for 2 people working on same files on site

any suggestions on how not to over-write each other's work

[pixeltierra]

I know this is a common problem, but since we are only two people I wondered if there is a simple system/program that would help us never to over-write eachother's work, so that we always use the most recent file from the server.

Right now we both edit files locally and upload them to the server. I have access to a recent version of dreamweaver but the other person is using an OLD version like 3, or something.

Ideally there would be an open source solution that would allow/force us to use the most recent file. We've both "agreed" to always download the file from the server first, but that is imprecise because we can forget and that is ineffective when we are both working on things.

Any suggestions?

[LifeinAsia]

We use Visual SourceSafe Explorer. Basically, you have to "check out" files from the "safe" to edit them, then you deploy to the server from the safe.

[encyclo]

There are two well-know open source tools for this: CVS and Subversion. Subversion was designed to be a better replacement for the older and simpler CVS:

[nongnu.org...]
[subversion.tigris.org...]

However, I believe that Dreamweaver has its own internal version control system - look at the check in/check out feature.

[monkeythumpa]

If there are only two people, use Dreamweaver's check in/check out feature. It locks files that people are working on until the person "checks it in". I have used subversion and the benifit of it is that even if two people are working on the file it will look line by line and take the most recent changes and prompt you if anything looks "hinkey".

[pixeltierra]

It seems that file check in and check out only protects files from being overwritten while they are checked out. This seems to be ineffective if both parties (or all) work from local copies and load them on the server. I could have checked in a file, but if someone takes their local copy (old), works on it and uploads it, it is still reverting to the old copy, and check in and check out won't work. Am I right in thinking this?

It seems check in and check out only work when there is one and only one file.

I think I'll check out subversion.

[monkeythumpa]

That is correct, to use DW's method both parties work off of the same "local" copy in your repository on your network.