Feature Based Web Development with Bazaar
- 1. Feature Based Development for Web Apps with Bazaar A Sydney PHP Group presentation 1 st May 2008 James Ellis customr.net
- 2. WHY ?
- 3. A feature is... A common set of changes that combine to produce the required result
- 4. Version Control Evolution File clobber (no control) – e.g transferring files with FTP Enter the Tree (Concurrent Version Systems) Improving CVS with Subversion (SVN) Distributed – (centralise if you wish)
- 5. File Clobber with FTP Destructive Revision Control Does not scale beyond one developer (Supported in Bazaar via a plugin) Manual Merges – who is doing the washing up?
- 6. Tree Versioning - centralised (-) Supports only one model of work (-) Branches and merges should be easier (+/-) Connection to remote server required (+) Much better QA (-) The freeze (please don't commit!) “ Subversion has been the most pointless project ever started... Subversion used to say, 'CVS done right.' With that slogan there is nowhere you can go. There is no way to do CVS right.” Linus Torvalds via /.
- 7. Tree Versioning – distributed Common tasks are implicit rather than explicit No file clobber – allows multiple branch dev. Similar tools – Bazaar, Git Implicit supports for standard protocols (http, ftp, sftp etc etc) that we already use every day. Does everything centralised does (and better) Allows scaling Up and Out
- 8. Everything is a branch Developers work in their own local branches Checkouts do exist – these are “bound” branches Developers provide patches to release managers Patches are merged into other branches QA step prior to publishing web app updates
- 9. Choose a development model No model is bad in Bazaar Easy to change between models without changing tools Centralised – SVN style single developer Centralised – SVN style multi developer Distributed – Allow committing to a “main” branch. Distributed using Gatekeeper – providing features for inclusion
- 10. Providing features Mantra : Treat your web app like an application, not a bunch of files Promotes experimentation without conflict Introduces the “Gatekeeper” role(s) Allows intra developer sharing (http/sftp/mdns) You can go on holiday AND have version control!!!
- 11. Simple Bazaar Implementation Install Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac packages Branch in five seconds Dev : Take a branch, work, commit and provide a patch QA : Preview, merge and update Release : provide release archive (zip, tar etc) which can be packaged (rpm, deb, etc)
- 12. Examples Create a branch Create a repo Pull a branch and keep it up to date Work on a feature then Commit Patch/Push Merge and optionally resolve conflicts Checkout and Update (or Export)
- 13. Integration with web dev tools Editor plugins (eclipse) Or just use the command line Bzr GUI's (GTK, Qt, Tortoise) Apache – virtual hosts are your friend Avahi (aka Rendezvous) sharing on a local net Bzr Plugins (upload)
- 14. Further reading & support bazaar-vcs.org Bazaar documentation Bazaar in Five Minutes (excellent) Bazaar Mailing Listings Commercial Support provided by Canonical Experiment Remember the Five Steps
Editor's Notes
- #2: Specifically going to focus on version control which is the glue that holds a web app together. * Who uses FTP to update sites ? * Hands up who uses version control * Who uses CVS ? * Who uses Subversion ? * Who uses Bazaar or Git ? For FTP users, this may tread some new territory but it's worth making the hike. For CVS and Subversion users, you will notice some similarities but there are also some major differences in the workflow. Mayl take time to wrap your head around these.