I’ve heard before that including project and workspace/solution files in source control is generally bad practice anyhow but I wanted to get feedback on the best way to handle this situation.
My work has requested I set up a source control service for my department (which i’ve been asking for since day 1, 3 years ago). My biggest hurdles are as follows.
We keep a snapshot of the latest release on a network SMB share, use a tag and manually update it? can multiple people maintain this working copy at once or does the folder associate with the creator only?
All of our ‘project’ files (containing file manifests, build info, etc.) uses absolute paths. This is a real pain if I use c:\myproject and a co-worker uses c:\MaiPrjLolKeke I’ve heard various arguments against the usage of putting project files under source control anyhow, but then if a new file gets added to the project what’s the best way to notify co-workers that new files might have to be added?
Set up your build files to use relative paths.
Ideally, you should be able to checkout a copy from SVN at any time (and into any folder), run the build script, run the automated tests, and be up and running immediately. If you can’t do that, you’re doing something wrong.
(Yeah, you may also need to set up the operating system, the database server, the web server, the programming language, and the IDE, first. But once the global infrastructure is already there, you should be able to hit the ground running at any time and from any location.)