Version Manager Total Beginner

how do install and use, what do i need to know?

[Kings on steeds]

Hello People,

I've been programming for years now, and i find my self working locally on my laptop and then uploading to a server when I'm done. Somthing that seems to work well, except when it comes time to edit code/revert changes/track changes and uploading every change to the test server is time consuming and sometimes if you miss and edited file you have to upload everything again just to make sure your base is covered. and well to be frank i know there is an easier way.

is subversion it?

I'd like to know mainly if I need to change the way I code to take advantage of subversion? I've had a small poke around and it seems I need a depoly server (deposit server?) and a work (development server maybe?) or some such, I work offline most of the time, so can I set a second hard-drive as the "deposit" location? also does it just store each change or a changed version of every file? cos that could get massive! or do I have to tell it make a "checkpoint" of my changes?

If anyone could proveide some insight it would be much apriciated, maybe some online resources i could take a peek at, and more importantly your own personal views, maybe there is something better than subversion?

Thanks in advance,
Alan

[lammert]

Subversion can run on your own computer, or on a remote one. I have a Linux computer here which contains the repositories of both Linux en Windows projects. The Linux projects are checked out and edited on the same computer where subversion runs on, the Windows projects are checked out on a Windows computer, The repositories must be in a subdirectory structure of your computer. How this is organized depends on the type of repository you use (File based, Berkeley database) and the way you want to access it (SVN proprietary protocol or WebDAV).

Normally Subversion only stores the differences of files. The exception is where it is difficult to do that like with images.

There is no need to be afraid that your repository grows faster than hard disk manufacturers develop larger disks. Because of the incremental way subversion stores the data.

There is no need to change the way you program. You may have to reorganize a little because projects in subversion are normally stored in a directory tree. If you currently store all your code in d:\development, all your documents about the project in the My Documents folder and all images in the My Pictures folder, you should now change to a structure like:

d:\project\site\docs
d:\project\site\images
d:\project\site\development

and then check in the d:\project\site structure in the subversion system.

[Kings on steeds]

Thanks lammert. I have subversion up and running now. Looks mighty helpfull (when I finally work out how to fully use it) :-)