Using Subversion

Reviewed by Major Keary

Pragmatic Press does not have a big list, but puts out high quality—but not of huge size—books for programmers. Recently released is the Pragmatic Starter Kit, which is in three volumes: Pragmatic Version Control, Pragmatic Unit Testing, and Pragmatic Automation. Each of these runs to a couple of hundred pages.

Volume I, Pragmatic Version Control, covers the use of Subversion; for those who are tied to CVS there is a separate CVS version of the book.

Why Subversion? There are, as the author explains, advantages in the design of Subversion that overcome some of the complexities of CVS and provide cross-platform support. There is a Microsoft Windows version that is described in the text, as well as discussion of using Subversion in a mixed Linux/MS Windows system.

The first two chapters introduce the topic of version control, describing how it works and the importance of using it in any software development process. The rest of the book is a user manual with tutorial content; it begins with installation and takes the reader through all aspects of Subversion. Extensive example code is used to support the text.

About a third of the book is taken up by appendices dealing with installation/administration, migrating from CVS, third-party tools, a command summary, and resources (online and bibliography).

The command summary appendix also contains 'recipes', which is a list of tasks with references to where each one is discussed in the text. For example, "finding out where a working copy came from", and "discarding changes in the face of a conflict". The 'recipe' listing, a good index, and a detailed table of contents makes information easy to find in this well-written text that should suit newcomers to version control as well as user of other systems.

Mike Mason: Pragmatic Version Control Using SUbversion

ISBN 0-9745140-6-3

Published by Pragmatic Press, 207 pp., RRP $55.00 incl. GST