Version Control with Subversion

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Subversion is a software system that allows multiple programmers to work on the same program without stepping on each other's toes. It's meant to improve on the older CVS system, while retaining the same philosophy. At the time of this review (Dec. 2004), this whole genre of open-source software is still in a state of flux, and the dust is still settling on the new generation of systems. Compared to what's available for many of the other systems trying to gain mindshare, this book represents a very good level of documentation. You can buy the book in print from O'Reilly, but it's also available under a copyleft license, which is cool. This is a review of the online PDF version, specifically an edition labeled "for subversion 1.1 (book compiled from revision 12460)."

In general, this seems to be a pretty decent book, and I was able to set up subversion fairly easily after reading it carefully and taking notes. It does have some flaws, though. Sometimes it presents options without explaining how to choose among them, as when it tells you three ways to start up the svnserve server, without saying why one would be better than another. Sometimes it explains how to do something only by giving an example, and it may not be clear how to generalize from the example. The free PDF does not include an index, but because the book is available online in HTML format, it's possible to use Google to accomplish the same thing. After writing this review, I bought a printed copy of the book (first edition, June 2004); the printed version does have an index, but doesn't cover subversion 1.1

Information wants to be free, so make some free information.

The above review is copyrighted by its author, and is copylefted under the following license:
Open Publication License 1.0 without options A or B

The contents of this web page, except the parts contributed by members of The Assayer, are copyright (c) 2000 by Benjamin Crowell, and are copyleft licensed under the Open Publication License 1.0, without options A or B.