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Pragmatic Version Control Using CVS View Larger Image | Dave Thomas, Andy Hunt
Pragmatic Bookshelf, Paperback, Published September 2003, 161 pages, ISBN 0974514004 | List Price: $29.95
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Customer Reviews: 4 Average Customer Rating:   Write a Review and tell the world about this title! People who purchase this book frequently purchase: - Pragmatic Unit Testing In Java with Junit; Andrew Hunt, et al, $18.95, 37% Off!
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This book is a recipe-based approach to using the CVS Version Control system that
will get you up and running quickly--and correctly. All projects need version
control: it's a foundational piece of any project's infrastructure. Yet half of
all project teams in the U.S. don't use any version control at all. Many others
don't use it well, and end up experiencing time-consuming problems.
Version Control, done well, is your "undo" button for the project:
nothing is final, and mistakes are easily rolled back. With version control,
you'll never again lose a good idea because someone overwrote your file edits.
You can always find out easily who made what changes to the source code--and
why. Version control is a project-wide time machine. Dial in a date and see
exactly what the entire project looked like yesterday, last Tuesday, or even
last year.
This book describes a practical, easy-to-follow way of using CVS, the most
commonly used version control system in the world (and it's available for free).
Instead of presenting the grand Theory of Version Control and describing every
possible option (whether you'd ever use it or not), this book focuses on the
practical application of CVS. It builds a set of examples of use that parallel
the life of typical projects, showing you how to adopt and then enhance your
pragmatic use of CVS.
With this book, you can:
-
Keep project all assets (not just source code) safe, and never run the risk
of losing a great idea
- Know how to undo bad decisions--no matter when they were made
- Learn how to share code safely, and work in parallel for maximum efficiency
- See how to avoid costly code freezes
- Manage 3rd party code
Now there's no excuse not to use professional-grade version control.
About the Author
Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt have more than 50 years
combined experience, developing software for clients around the world. For the
last 10 years they've been working together as The Pragmatic Programmers, helping
clients write software and improve their development processes. They are authors
of the best-selling The Pragmatic Programmer, and have written several other
books. They speak at conferences globally, and are editors of IEEE Software's
"Construction" column.
Customer Reviews
Customer Reviews: 4 Average Customer Rating: Jan 23, 2008
Great book for teaching practical use of CVS
This book is well organized and easy to read. It gives excellent advice on how to use CVS effectively in your projects. How to structure your folders and what CVS commands you need to make it happen. This is not a book on how to use CVS but a book on how to use CVS better.
Apr 20, 2006
Still ended up doing web searches.
This book isn't what I hoped for. It spends a lot of space talking about general SCM concepts but fails to map them onto CVS's somewhat odd view (relative to other SCMs). I'm turning to the web to get info so the book was only somewhat useful.
Nov 26, 2005
Taught this CVS guru some new tricks
...especially when to chuck the "guru" hat aside.
The main premise of this great book is that version control is a tool, not a purpose on its own.
It then proceeds to explain version control's proper role in the development process, and provides a cool recipe approach to performing every CVS task common to small- to mid-sized projects, and most uncommon ones as well.
Arrghh, the innumerable hours I've spent learning the Cederquist CVS manual by heart could have been spent on so many better things!
Even where the book is lacking, you get a very clear idea of what you need and then it's easy to look it up.
Worthy for anyone new to CVS and version control, and moreso for seasoned professionals, especially for the aforementioned focus on version control's important yet supporting role to development.
Aug 9, 2004 A review from Maryland, USA
Pratical, readable but light
This is a very handy little book if you're just getting started with CVS. It provides some general background on the how and whys of configuration management, which would be useful if you're adopting a CM system for the first time. Then it delves into the details of CVS. Most of the examples are Unix-centric, but I found no problems working on Windows systems from the command line.
It's worth spending a couple of days with this book if you're just setting up a CVS based software repository. There are some useful examples that you will probably find yourself referring to from time to time. It provides some details on command options, so it can serve as light reference material. If you're expecting to administer a CVS based system, though, you'll probably want to supplement this text with a more detailed reference (such as Vesperman's "Essential CVS").
One of this book's strengths is its directness. There are almost unlimited variations in how you can set up your software repositories, how to organize your code, etc. Rather than throwing all that complexity at you, the book usually presents one sensible mainstream approach. In some cases, a few alternatives are presented. This feels about right for an introductory book like this. It does mean, however, that if you have some unusual arcane setup in mind, you might not find the book that useful.
The perfect CVS text would be to combine the narrative from this book with the detail from Vesperman's book.
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