Robert Sandie wrote:
On my fourth large flash project and have yet to come up with a sound
CVS system/workflow for Flash. Does anyone have any best practice
stories regarding version control and integration into web development
projects? Would love to hear.
My team has been using Subversion (SVN) for source control on our Flash
projects with great success for nearly eight months now. In our largest
SVN repository, we've had up to six developers working simultaneously
and over 500 classes.
At home, I've been using Subversion locally to provide a simple means of
backing up previous versions of code on personal projects, Flash and
otherwise.
Here's how we do it:
Although Subversion and other version control systems typically don't
offer support for binary merges, we've managed to sidestep this issue in
Flash development by keeping _all_ of code save for the simplest test
chassis in external class files rather than inside FLAs.
We very rarely write any code within the Flash IDE, rather we use
Eclipse and FDT, which integrates relatively well with Subversion via
the Subclipse plugin. If FDT is out of your price range, you may want
to consider SEPY and ASDT as alternatives. Alternatively, TortoiseSVN
provides the same degree of integration with the Windows explorer shell.
We also favor laying out components via code, and in more complicated
cases, implementing data-driven layout engines (in a manner strongly
reminiscent of Flex), as opposed to doing layout on the stage.
Aside from very infrequent changes to the FLAs' libraries when we need
to add component symbols, this allows us to keep the number of binary
merges to a minimum (typically only once every month or so).
Subversion also works very well for us as the trunk, branch and tag
metaphor allows developers to branch code off the main development trunk
when necessary to refactor significant units of code and tags allow us
to snapshot major milestone releases for keeping track of features and
regressions.
Lastly, Subversion's ease of integration into Apache and WebDAV makes it
trivial to allow remote access. This is particularly important as our
team operates out of two offices nearly a hour's drive apart and quite a
few of us work from home on occasion.
As a caveat though, we specialize in Flash RIA development and have
little need for manipulating FLAs other than adding or removing
component and graphical assets to the library. As such, your mileage
may vary, depending on your development methodologies and the frequency
in which your team needs to make changes to your FLAs or other binary files.
Jim
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