[Yanel-dev] Moving configuration files, css, xslt, etc. from SVN into testing and production

[Cedric Staub]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 12:30:39PM +0000, Michael Wechner wrote:
> On 1/24/11 9:52 AM, Cedric Staub wrote:
> > For example, say you are currently developing a new resource for a
> > customer on top of the devel branch. Once done, you would simply "pull"
> > a given commit or a specific set of changes into the staging and later
> > the production branch, leaving everything else untouched.
> 
> well, the problem I see with this is the amount of data. For example if 
> one has a huge amount of data within the data repository, whereas the 
> developer only changed a CSS or Javascript, then you don't want to
> "pull" all the other data across the network.

That's my point. Mercurial only pulls the changes, not the whole repository 
and not even the whole file. Think of it like a patch in Subversion: You
create a patch on one side, and apply it on the other. The patch only
includes the changes you made. The difference is in Mercurial the
process is automated and unlike with a patch you don't lose the history
that goes along with the commit :-).

Copying all the other data over the network is exactly what most people
seem to be doing now: Zip it all up, transfer to server, unzip, copy.
Using a distributed version control system prevents exactly that.

Cheers
Cedric