Configuration Management

Configuration management was relatively easy after the work done on the competitive Robocode robot. I was greatly aided in this in that I had previously used Google Project Hosting for another project, though my experiences with the service were somewhat mixed. Because I had no experience with SVN at that time, I was limited to editing the files that were already on the project page, which meant updating files one at a time. Obviously, this was a terribly inefficient method of working on the project. There were ultimately never any problems with the project not working—unless someone attempted to checkout the project while I was between updating files, no one would notice that the files were out of sync—but still, there was that risk, and there was also the danger that I might forget to update one or more files, resulting in a final product that did not work. On the positive side, having to update files one by one meant that I was recorded as making a lot of updates to the code, so someone taking a casual glance at the list of updates would assume that I was doing my fair share of the work.

I was successful in making updates to a sample project page and creating a project site for my own DeaconBlues Robocode robot. In doing this, I learned how to use Google Project Hosting and TortoiseSVN. There was a mild issue with TortoiseSVN in that the latest version does not support Windows XP with Service Pack 2, which is what my current system uses, so I am using version 1.6.16. However, at least for these early stages where I only have to checkout, update, and commit files, any loss in functionality is not noticeable.

Obviously, using SVN to commit changes to a project all at once is much easier than going through all of the files one by one. TortoiseSVN is a very convenient, clever system that allows me to easily commit changes. I remain more ambivalent about Google Project Hosting; though it certainly does what it is supposed to, I still think that being able to upload and especially to delete files through Google Project Hosting itself should be much easier than it is now. Although I can work around this with SVN (and doing so is in fact better since it allows me to run a verification check before committing the change), I think that since the files are on the project site, it should be possible to add to or delete from that set of files through the project site.

Overall though, this first experience with SVN and configuration management was positive. I can see how Google Project Hosting will be very useful for collaboration with others in the future.