About this Book

How the book is organized

Each chapter in the book is meant to extend your knowledge of Subversion. The first few chapters will give you a basic understanding so you can start using the software productively. The following chapters will show you how to take advantage of the power of Subversion. This means you don't have read the book from cover to cover to use Subversion. In addition to using the book as a guide, you can use it as a reference. By following the headings, you can quickly find the information you are looking for. Let's take a look at how the chapters are organized:

• Chapter 1 gives you an introduction to version control in general and shows what Subversion brings to the table.

• Chapter 2 gets you started using Subversion. Here you will install the software, create a repository, and start to access it.

• Chapters 3 and 4 go through the common Subversion commands to manipulate files and get information out of the repository.

• Chapter 5 discusses branching and tagging concepts and how Subversion implements them.

• Chapter 6 describes properties, which are Subversion's implementation of metadata.

• Chapters 7 and 8 go into repository administration, including backups and network access, and then advance to such topics as client configuration and hook scripts.

• Chapter 9 explores the "extra" Subversion clients that give you more advanced capabilities to customize your implementation.

• Chapter 10 reviews some of the common third-party tools that can enhance your development with Subversion.

• Chapter 11 wraps up by showing how you can use Subversion in areas of development that may not fit the traditional view of version control yet still be valuable.

Who should read this book

• Version control is something that affects many parts of an organization, open source or commercial, that does any kind of development. There are three main groups of people who need to know about the tool and the process behind the tool:

• Developers: This is the obvious group who will benefit from the book. Not only will you learn how to use Subversion, but you will see ways it can help you with your software development.

• Configuration managers: If you are responsible for the building, deployment, and migration of source code, you will need to have a better understanding of version control than even the developers. In addition to using Subversion, you will need to create scripts, automation, and the processes around the code.

• System administrators: In many oranizations, the people maintaining the infrastructure are separate from those who develop it. Even if you do not work with the code, you will have to install the software, set up access, configure the network, and create backups. These topics have been segmented so you can easily refer to them without having to go through all aspects of Subversion.