polishlinux.org » Manage Your Documents with Subversion
A guide to using Subversion for managing and tracking changes to documents.
Blogs · @wyome
Tagged version control · everything
A guide to using Subversion for managing and tracking changes to documents.
This excerpt from a Subversion guide explains how the version control system uses a nonlocking model that allows multiple users to modify the same files simultaneously, resolving conflicts through automatic merging rather than preventing them through locks. The author argues that while this approach may seem risky compared to locking systems like Visual SourceSafe, it actually avoids greater problems like stale locks and deadlocks while allowing Subversion to automatically merge non-conflicting changes and provide clear conflict markers when overlapping edits do occur. The piece acknowledges that locking has some valid use cases (particularly for binary files and restricted access scenarios) but contends that in most development scenarios, the nonlocking approach is superior because it eliminates the false sense of security that locks provide and encourages necessary developer communication.