Re: Please help me arrange my development environment

[Chris Smith]

Preston Crawford wrote ...
> I'm trying to decide how I should setup my development web server. The 
> model I've seen used so far with CVS is to setup a local web server 
> (Tomcat, JRun, etc.) and to use CVS to download source into the local 
> directories, develop, and then check in the code when done.
> 
> The model I'm used to working in (using Visual Interdev/ASP/Visual Source 
> Safe) is one where you do development using FrontPage Server extensions 
> against a remote server AND source store. So what I'm struggling with is 
> how exactly CVS can and should be used in devising my environment here. 
> 
> Given what I've said earlier about my understanding of how you use CVS, 
> especially for web development, is there any reason to believe I should be 
> using it in a manner *similar* to how I'm used to working, with a single 
> development web server and workstations working against that machine?

Depends on how you're planning on using CVS.  If the goal of your source 
control is to make it possible for multiple people to work simultaneously 
on different modifications to the source, then using a single development 
server for testing rather defeats those gains.  If, on the other hand, 
you only have one or a very few developers who communicate intensely 
outside of the source control, your more familiar model could be workable 
and could keep down installation maintenance headaches.

You will, of course, want a separate system for integration testing on 
any project of reasonably large size.  This would be separate from any of 
the developers' machines, and would be used for regression testing to be 
sure that multiple developers don't make changes that logically conflict 
(which is still quite possible with any source control system).

Chris Smith