Working with remote code

[Michael Gliwinski]

Hi John,

On Thursday 25 Feb 2010 20:43:39 John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> Michael Gliwinski wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > In the company I work for we work on some internal software that is
> > nowhere near any releasable/packageable, etc. form, furthermore testing
> > it often requires putting it on some server which has the environment
> > setup, etc. Currently there is a development server which has everything
> > setup and most programmers actually work directly on that via remote
> > shell.
> >
> > There is a plan to migrate towards development on own workstations and
> > using some of the fancy GUIs, etc ;)  This however means that testing a
> > change, program, etc. now has to be preceded with some form of
> > deployment/upload and possibly opening a remote shell to run the program.
> >
> > What I currently do is I usually keep a copy of the branch I'm working on
> > on the dev server and push to it whenever I want to test some change.  It
> > isn't very handy when you push a change and run only to discover some
> > missing bracket is causing syntax error :D
> >
> > For some other software I've written some hackish deployment scripts
> > (with Fabric) and use that, but that usually has the same problem except
> > that I don't have commits for every missing bracket fixed ;)
> >
> > I was wondering if anyone else here on the list deals with similar
> > workflows/situations.  If so I'd be really interested to hear how, any
> > specific tools that are helpful, etc.
> >
> > BTW, someone here suggested setting up samba on the dev server and
> > keeping the branches there and working on them remotely, has anyone done
> > anything like that?  I remember reading about some problems with that
> > approach but can't remember what it was precisely.
> >
> > Appreciate any thoughts on that,
> > Regards,
> > Michael
> 
> I think either method should work fine. If you find it annoying to have
> 'fix a typo' in your commit logs, you can do "bzr uncommit; bzr commit
> -m "fix I just did"; bzr push --overwrite" to the remote branch.

No, I have no problem with having those in the history, I was rather looking 
to streamline the number of steps that need to be done between making a change 
and testing it (which, for some bits we're working on here, has to be done on 
a remote server).

> Given the options, I would probably prefer not to use a samba share.
> Stuff like compiling, etc are always much slower on a network share. I
> realize you probably don't have that specific bit, but potentially your
> editor, or syntax highlighting or whatever would then have to read
> network files to find context. Nicer to have it locally, IMO.

Well, as I mentioned, some things need to be done on the remote server.  E.g. 
most of the developers here work on systems written in Progress ABL, for 
various reasons (both licensing and technical) we can compile and test that 
code only on the server.

I see your point about the editor/IDE, etc having to read files over network.  
To be honest that was my main issue with this approach as well.  The server is 
local to our office though so maybe it wouldn't be a big issue.

> 
> John
> =:->
> 

Thanks for your comments, there's still some time before we start reorganizing 
things, so I'll probably try out few approaches and see what works.

Cheers,
Michael


-- 
Michael Gliwinski
Henderson Group Information Services
9-11 Hightown Avenue, Newtownabby, BT36 4RT
Phone: 028 9034 3319

**********************************************************************************************
The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged.  It is intended solely for the addressee and access to the email by anyone else is unauthorised.
If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful.
When addressed to our clients, any opinions or advice contained in this e-mail are subject to the terms and conditions expressed  in the governing client engagement leter or contract.
If you have received this email in error please notify support at henderson-group.com

John Henderson (Holdings) Ltd
Registered office: 9 Hightown Avenue, Mallusk, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, BT36 4RT.
Registered in Northern Ireland
Registration Number NI010588
Vat No.: 814 6399 12
*********************************************************************************