What is your system to store project files?

I was thinking this morning how my system of storing project files "works". As someone who designs LAN storage systems I thought I would be a little better at this - wrong.

The first problem is that I'm on many different systems a day. At work I can be on my laptop or my workstation, or on a production server. At home I can be on my linux box, laptop, or my wintendo machine. So if I am working on a project I find myself wondering "Where did I put that thing?" or "Which one is the latest version?".

The second problem I have is that I'm switching between home and work. "Did I put it on the ftp server?" or "Is it on my workstation at work or was I smart enough to keep it on the laptop?".

I think my third problem is that I like having the flexibility of using all these systems for development. I like using my wintendo machine at work cause I can play music and it has a 19" monitor. I like using the workstation at work for the same reason. I like using my laptop because I have a wireless LAN at home and I can watch tv while I chat on ir...er I mean code. And finally I like using my linux systems to actually run the scripts.

On wintendo systems I use the same format for physical storage. I use a directory called "work" off the root drive. In that directory I use folders to separate larger projects. On linux I use a directory called "work" off my home dir, and again, I use the same folder structure to seperate projects.

Right now my sanity is being held onto, but I don't know for how much longer.

What do you use to store your files and how are they organized on your system? If you use multiple systems, how do you keep track of everything? Is CVS the way to go? Or is something like Sourceforge good enough to manage individual projects? I'm also curious to note what some of you do when a script has been replaced or become deprecated. Do you archive to CD or leave it till your hard drive eventually fails? Or do you have a seperate directory called "crap" or something where you dump the old stuff?

Things are slowly getting harder and harder to organize with my "system". I know once I get into larger projects and/or lots of smaller utility type scripts - the organization won't be very helpful.

Thanks,
djw

Comment on What is your system to store project files?

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Re:(Jepri) What is your system to store project files? by jepri (Parson) on Jul 04, 2001 at 18:24 UTC
There are a number of good systems for synchronising directories, if you are the only person who works on them. rsync, unison and sitecopy can all be set up to run automatically and keep all your systems up to date. Systems like WebDAV and CVS are great if there are multiple people working on the same code, and you have to make sure they don't clobber each others changes. However they both require a bit more work to use, since you have to go to the effort of locking the file and downloading it before you work on it. All my scripts get archived every day by an automatic script, and backuped up to another server once a week. ____________________ Jeremy I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.	[reply]
Re: What is your system to store project files? by DrZaius (Monk) on Jul 04, 2001 at 21:34 UTC
Sounds like CVS is your answer. It allows you to syncronize many working copies and has conflict resolution stuff as well. Also, it handles archiving depreciated scripts: they go into the attic and you don't see them unless you request them. Also, backing up your code is easy a tar zcvf `date +%Y-%m-%H-%M-%S`.tar.gz $CVSROOT in cron will automagically back up your whole repository. Chances are this will fit onto a floppy for a long time. Pserver can be a bit wierd to set up. Also, be careful with win32 and it's case insensitive filesystem. When I code at home, I have a local cvs repository (no pserver) as I only have one box to worry about. It works well for what I do.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: What is your system to store project files? by John M. Dlugosz (Monsignor) on Jul 05, 2001 at 00:21 UTC
I keep my "work", files I edit and manipulate, in a work tree because it simplifies backing up. I use a Work Backup script to copy files daily to another spindle. On my home machine, that's a 3^rd hard drive used soly for backups. At work, it goes to a network directory. In general, this program is evolving to allow "backup buddies" over the Internet via encrypted backups. Meanwhile, I do a full image backup monthly, of the entire hard drive. I do this with a special boot disk, copying the entire disk image, funny OS files and all. The program I use, PQ DriveImage, has a utility that lets me access the image file as an archive, too. That lets me fish out files I didn't know I needed to back up! For disaster recovery, I can restore the whole drive image to a new disk. I burn the monthly backup to a set of CD's—reusing 3 sets of R/W and saving a perminant CD-R every 4 to 6 months. For version control at home, I use Source Safe because it came with the compiler. To move files between work and home, I used to have a ZIP drive for this purpose. Now I can FTP them, but for small things I typically use a floppy disk or email it to myself. I don't have the ZIP hooked up at home anymore. —John	[reply]
Re: What is your system to store project files? by robsv (Curate) on Jul 05, 2001 at 00:08 UTC
I'd have to agree with jepri and DrZaius regarding CVS. Just for my $0.02, here's a link where you'll find most of what you'll need: http://www.cvshome.org - robsv	[reply]


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