SVN Commit habits

[Rob Cashwalker]

So, I was exploring the revision graph function in Subversion....

I was looking at the graph for Card.java.
And I noticed that there have been a number of changes, where the comments have nothing to do with changes to Card.java, they're related to adding cards or fixing bugs in other parts. I'm not seeing any way to view all the actual changes on any one file over time. (I could compare the current to any particular revision though)

So I'm wondering if folks are commiting the entire project at a time, or just individual files?

My personal preference is to only commit the individual file, practically only one change at a time. The comment for the commit is then focused only on those few changes.

[Chris H.]

I tend to make commits which are fairly easy for experienced coders to follow and to resolve any conflicts. My commits should stand on their own and should not generate any errors or warnings… that is, anyone should be able to build the project and not worry about whether I have another piece to merge latter in the week. Or, at least, I hope so. And my comments tend to be brief, but my contributions are fairly simple.

I realize that my many small edits have resulted in a large number of commits over the last several months. I hope that I am not overwhelming our dev team. My todo list is almost empty now and my future commits will likely be fewer in number.

I admit that I have not yet reached a point where I can resolve conflicts easily on my own. Nor can I follow much of the work that other people contribute to our project. I only make commits when there are no changes coming from the SVN to my local copy.

I have recently learned how to have two separate workspaces. One is for just my local copy of our SVN. The second is where I have various separate ongoing projects where I do my actual work. I think that this may help me to not screw up the SVN.

On the odd chance that the HEAD SVN becomes corrupted and unbuildable, we can always re-install the SVN copy to our local machine, but we would choose an earlier r-number from the listing.

As far as other people are concerned, I can live with just about any style of work habits. Some people are comfortable with merging multiple changes at one time and can keep this all straight in their minds while other people will want to focus on making small adjustments.

[DennisBergkamp]

I'm guilty as charged here: I do tend to just commit all changes I've made.
Sometimes I forget what changes I made exactly, but those are usually minor changes.

The tricky thing is, in general I work on Forge during very short intervals, during which I usually don't have internet access.

[Chris H.]

I had a thought last night. When the SVN was first started, we had a group of people with a strong, pent up desire to make a submission to the Forge project. The SVN opened the flood gates and a substantial amount of work product has recently come in.

It appears that the pent up demand is now sated and the number of new submissions have decreased as a result. I expect that in the future it will be easier to keep track of the changes being made. The commit log messages tend to be brief, but we can always ask a question on our forum if we need additional information.