slate blog

One of the reasons that makes developing slate so fun is the way we manage the code. Although code management isn’t a new concept, it is a relatively new practice here at Web Services. I, for one, never used any type of version control system or anything like that in previous work. I do remember a single lesson on (CVS)Concurrent Versions System, but at the time developing a “hello world” application in CVS seemed like major overkill.

Copy and paste

As a result, I kept my former ways of cheap versioning: copy and paste. I simply would copy and paste the entire project folder and give it a name like “blog-old.” This became an immense pain when I would accidentally open the wrong folder: I would get quite flustered when none of the changes I made took affect in the browser when I refreshed.

When I started at Web Services, the situation grew even worse. Not only was I sloppily managing my code, I was sometimes working at home. As a result, I had to constantly ensure that I copied all the files from the project to my USB drive to keep the machines synced up.

Subversion

There was no way I could keep this up. As the project grew, so too did the time to copy it between machines. I can’t recall how I found Subversion, but once I did I was hooked. I installed it on our test server and started creating repositories for my projects. I loved Subversion from the moment I started using it on the alumni website. Working between two machines was a breeze with SVN.

Trac

In addition to Subversion, another application that has proved quite useful is Trac. With Trac, we instantly had a place to easily write documentation for slate (in the wiki), track changes to the repository and browse all the source, and capture bug reports, etc. with the ticket system.

Conclusion

It’s never too late to change your methods – if you aren’t managing your code beyond “copy-and-paste”, have a look at Subversion (or at least some type of version control system). It’s easy to use, and in the end provides a layer of security (peace of mind) that can’t be matched. We currently have three people using Subversion at Web Services (Dave, me, and our designer Adam), and aside from a few minor hiccups here and there, it’s been a big help.