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elifarley

Brad Lewis wrote:

Hi EliFarley,
Just been going over ideas for best approach for the future dev team of microfunding project and wanted to run by the following ideas as they would impact you and increase what you'd need to manage (unless you delegated it of course).

Ideas	Benefit	Risk
Use a DEV Virtual machine(VM) image of OS that matches TEST & PROD environments. Developers then just install VirtualBox on their home machine, download Dev VM Image and, once familiarized they can begin work. VM could contain: Linux based OS currently used by OSE server. SVN already pointing to central code repository of project (e.g. MicroFunding) containing copy of of the OSE Wiki code Local server like Apache (or whatever OSE currently uses to serve the Wiki )so developers can test their changes locally before checking code in. Appropriate dev tools like a PHP IDE, notepad++, etc, whatever best fit for team. MySQL db	Minimizes volunteer collaborators setup time and barriers to productivity. increases ability to troubleshoot issues as all team members working with same environment increases team’s ability to share optimizations of environment in a centrally controlled way if an invidividual’s machine fail’s or image gets corrupted, they can download new image and start over creates a standardized way of working which enables best practices among the team.	Introduces an additional layer of complexity (i.e. VM issues) to the process May be seen as a barrier to potential team members not familiar with working with VM Images or in the chosen project OS. May steepen learning curve and orientation time of new developers not familiar with VM.
Wiki code in DEV saved to a central SVN code repository (hosted by OSE - EliFarley to admin?)	Team members code is saved to central location Prevents loss of work from hard drive failure if developers checkin working code regularly.	May steepen learning curve and orientation time of new developers not familiar with SVN or regularly checking in working code. Increases need for developers to coordinate when changing code others are working on.

These are just ideas and what we use where I work (although we're on MS servers & have licenses for VM burning software).
I'm wondering if you're familiar and comfortable working with what I'm thinking about and what your thoughts are. Part of me wonders if it's overkill for this project, but then another part thinks it would avoid a lot of pitfalls...
Let me know your opinion (or any questions) when you have a sec.

elifarley

Hi Brad,

Given the benefits and risks listed above, I'd say that using a VM should be clearly optional - only those comfortable with that would use it, so a non-VM based workflow should not be neglected.

Regarding the SCM tool, I would avoid SVN and other non-distributed SCM tools. I've been using Mercurial for a few years (and hacking it a bit - its Python source code is quite easy to follow and well organized). Others here seem to like Git.

Either way, we could keep the source code on BitBucket, since it provides unlimited free repos for Mercurial and Git.

Howdy, Stranger!

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