Mercurial at work
comments | Posted in scm on Friday, August 24 2007 16:04:00 GMT
So I'm slowing beginning project(s) at my new job. Something I have not asked about is version control usage in the department.
I tend to work iteratively. I create a base project with barebone features and then branch off between 2 or 3 ideas where the base project could be taken.
I have done this for a site re-design I'm working on: * get the base files from remote server - setup my own dev site of the live site
- do version of site template as-is replacing out the very little content I have to change with the new content (preserving current DOM structure 99%).
- do version of site template with absolute position div'd content areas (heavy page rework)
- do version of site template with all fluid div layout and very little images (heavy page rework)
In doing this I have essentialy created 1 project directory with 3 folders in it, a single folder for each attempt (essentially a branch for each case).
Fooie.
I'm used to jobs that have no existing version control infrastructure to work with, so I'm taking a stab and installing a SCM on my local work machine. I'm opting for Mercurial this time around the SCM tree. At my previous job posting myself and a another developer instigated the use of Subversion for all new and re-claimed projects (projects which M29 completed/shelved previously that upon new work need to be fully imported into SVN).
SVN is very useful, relatively easy to setup with Apache and web access. But, I think for a single developer my life may be slightly easier with Mercurial. It contaminates the filesystem less and I think that fact alone will make deploying code that much quicker. Especially since TortoiseSVN is not available under MacOSX and I'm still getting the whole Apple thing under my belt. I think Mercurial will be as powerful as SVN but much more out of my way as a web site administrator/designer/developer.
Depending on how my allergic reaction to Mercurial usage is ... I hope to still port my home SVN repo (yes, I use 1 biiig repo) into a Mercurial system ... and farther off making of that codebase accessible to the public (yea ... that last part is a bit of a pipe dream).