Basic Newbie Q -- how to keep our Dev Environment Stable?

[coder99]

Our company recently left Visual Source Safe for Vault. My question involves getting code move out to our Dev environment once code is checked back in (we develop locally).

In the old day of Visual Source Safe, we used to login into the devBox -- then open VSS and do a "get latest" verision -- that pulled in a new code and life was good. Now what has happened with Vault is developers are using it for source control but no one is using it to pull files into DEV -- to "refresh" the code base. Instead people are manually moving files over to DEV (and often forgetting exactly what they changed). As a result our DEV environment is unhealthy and broken.

On my machine, I'll do a "get latest", run a compile (which is clean) and presto the site is fine.

When I asked our lead (who is way over booked and scheduled) about doing a "get-latest" from the DEV box to ensure all code is new and fresh and avoid manaully moving files, he explained -- "yeah, you should be able to do that with Vault, but the Vault client is not installed on the Dev Box."



So, am I nuts and mentally stuck in the old VSS world -- or do we --as a team -- need to install the client on the dev box and run "get-latests"? I have to think yes. I'm so incredibly frustrated with this, that I've resorted to making this post, sorry if it seems very basic.

Your thoughts?

Cheers,

R

[lbauer]

Getting files to a dev server would be much the same with Vault. You could install a Vault client on the dev machine and do periodic "get latest" operations.

You could automate this process by creating an automated script that would evoke the Vault Command Line Client and do the gets. (You'd still need to install the Vault Client on the Dev machine, but once the script was in place, gets would be "hands free."

Another option is to use Shadow Folders. A shadow folder is a local folder that contains the contents of a repository folder, and is kept up-to-date in the shadow folder by the Vault server as changes are applied to repository folder. For more information, see Vault Admin Tool Help->Repository Options->Configure Shadow Folders.

[coder99]

Linda,

Thanks for your suggestion -- we're giving Shadow Folders a try -- seems very slick and a perfect solution for our scenario.

Thanks!

Rich