[svnbook commit] r2882 - trunk/src/en/book
sussman
noreply at red-bean.com
Sat Nov 17 09:13:11 CST 2007
Author: sussman
Date: Sat Nov 17 09:13:09 2007
New Revision: 2882
Log:
Finish trac issue #54.
* src/en/book/ch00-preface.xml
(Is Subversion the Right Tool?): new section.
Modified:
trunk/src/en/book/ch00-preface.xml
Modified: trunk/src/en/book/ch00-preface.xml
==============================================================================
--- trunk/src/en/book/ch00-preface.xml (original)
+++ trunk/src/en/book/ch00-preface.xml Sat Nov 17 09:13:09 2007
@@ -629,6 +629,56 @@
grocery shopping lists to digital video mixdowns and
beyond.</para>
+
+ <!-- =============================================================== -->
+ <sect2 id="svn.intro.righttool">
+
+ <title>Is Subversion the Right Tool?</title>
+
+ <para>If you're a user or system administrator pondering the use
+ of Subversion, the first question you should ask yourself is:
+ "is this the right tool for the job?" Subversion is a
+ fantastic hammer, but be careful not to view every problem as
+ a nail.</para>
+
+ <para>If you need to archive old versions of files and
+ directories, possibly resurrect them, or examine logs of how
+ they've changed over time, then Subversion is exactly the
+ right tool for you. If you need to collaborate with people on
+ documents (usually over a network) and keep track of who made
+ which changes, then Subversion is also appropriate. This is
+ why Subversion is so often used in software development
+ environments — programming is an inherently social
+ activity, and Subversion makes it easy to collaborate with
+ other programmers. Of course, there's a cost to using
+ Subversion as well: administrative overhead. You'll need to
+ manage a data-repository to store the information and all its
+ history, and be diligent about backing it up. When working
+ with the data on a daily basis, you won't be able to copy,
+ move, rename, or delete files the way you usually do.
+ Instead, you'll have to do all of those things through
+ Subversion.</para>
+
+ <para>Assuming you're fine with the extra workflow, you should
+ still make sure you're not using Subversion to solve a problem
+ that other tools solve better. For example, because
+ Subversion replicates data to all the collaborators involved,
+ a common misuse is to treat it as a generic distribution
+ system. People will sometimes use Subversion to distribute
+ huge collections of photos, digital music, or software
+ packages. The problem is, this sort of data usually isn't
+ changing at all. The collection itself grows over time, but
+ the individual files within the collection aren't being
+ changed. In this case, using Subversion is
+ "overkill".<footnote><para>Or as a friend puts
+ it, <quote>swatting a fly with a
+ Buick.</quote></para></footnote> There are simpler tools that
+ efficiently replicate data <emphasis>without</emphasis> the
+ overhead of tracking changes, such as <command>rsync</command>
+ or <command>unison</command>.</para>
+
+ </sect2>
+
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<sect2 id="svn.intro.history">
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