RE: [Phpgroupware-developers] Managing changes (was: PHPDocs for head)

[Alan Langford]

At 2005 04 20 09:28, Mailings - Christian Boettger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > but then the developer commits the code s/he has been working
> > on for those months which is so different that most of your
> > "fix" gets wiped out anyway.
>
> Well, perhaps it's a good habit - especially when working on an app for
> months - to a) have an eye on the cvs commit mailing list to see whether
> anything has been committed to that app in the meantime and b) do a "cvs up"
> from time to time and definitely before any "cvs  co" to actually take
> advantage of those changes and fixes.
>
> That's the whole purpose of CVS that more than one person can actually work
> simultaneously on the same code. If we skip that, we do not need CVS at all.
> Otherwise you can better use things like M$ VSS which uses exclusive
> checkouts; i.e.: as soon as one dev has checked out a file, noone can commit
> to it any more until the first one has released it again.
>
> Regards
>
> bofh42

I agree entirely. My suggestion is useless if commits are only done on 
major changes. Around here the policy is check in to an "unstable" branch 
at end of day, resolve conflicts immediately, or the next day at the 
latest. The unstable branch can have syntax errors, but you'll attract 
glares for it. When the code appears to work (at least mostly), it moves to 
the stable branch. QA/QC gets to dictate what goes into a release.

In a cooperative team, sometimes someone looks at what you're working on 
and makes a suggestion that saves a lot of time. If the mode for the team 
is to do a lot of work behind a curtain and then spring the changes on the 
community, then it's less of a community, there's less communication, it's 
harder for new folks to know what's going on, and the risk of interpersonal 
conflict is higher.

But the step on toes, mutual mistrust, duke it out, come to our senses, 
settle down, make grudging apologies, put the project first, get back to 
having fun method certainly is more entertaining reading!