Can't commit any changes?

[Michael Diamond]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Ray Bartlett <rbartlett at 20miletech.com>wrote:

> Gosh, Mike, thanks for taking the time to write.  I had already found
> that page but clearly my definition of "simple" isn't at all matching
> the Mercurial concept.  In the "quick start" I saw that you clone via
> http...didn't realize that didn't allow for the full circle to happen.
>

Basically, Mercurial is really easy and painless for developers who are
using it.  Unfortunately, as is true of most things, there's a little more
work on the operations side of things :P  Having configured a couple of
different Mercurial repositories I can say it's not /all that/ bad, but it's
still a bit of work.

>
> Really, I need a simple step by step walk-through (if there is such a
> thing) for setting up a repository that people can write and read to.
> I'm not sure why it matters whether it's /usr/var/www/html or
> /some/other/directory.  Users are hoping to use a Mac client called Hg
> (a gui) to do most of the work.
>
> How exactly does one return a cloned repo back to the pool so others
> can find it, access it, and make new changes?
>

Look through the publishing repositories Wiki page Mike linked you to,
you're on the right track you just need to do some server configuration.
 The basic gist is you put a copy of the repository (we'll call this the
central repository) on a web server (though not in root, generally
speaking).  Then you configure Apache to serve up access to the repository
so that authorized users can clone it, and also push to it.  The details are
in the wiki.  It sounds like you /also/ want people to be able to see the
build in a live web server immediately.  In that case, you either want the
development web server to pull the changes from the central repository
every, say, thirty minutes, or have a hook (look in the wiki for info on
hooks) in the central repository that pushes all changes on to the
development web server.

>
> In our case, our developers want to be able to quickly and immediately
> see how the changes look on the web, hence the need to publish to the
> /var/www/html directory.


This still will only show changes once the user *pushe*s their changes from
their local machine to the central repository, not immediately.  Generally
speaking - and this is good practice in general, not just with Mercurial -
developers should be able to do as much reviewing and testing as they can
locally, before they share their changes with everyone else.  This might
involve having a small web server running on each developer's computer, for
instance, and ought to resolve the problem of needing to see the changes "on
the web" instantly.  If not, you may want to look more deeply at your
development process.

>
> Is there a syntax so that instead of "publishing by http" they can
> publish some other fashion?  Does Mercurial usually require people be
> on the same local machine?  If so, it seems kind of impractical.
>

There are several different ways to publish (see the wiki article Mike
linked again) and Mercurial not only does not require people be on the same
machine, it is in fact designed around the principle that they are on
completely different machines that are not connected.

>
> Again, thank you for the help.  I guess coming from a mindset of FTP
> or so on, I feel like it should be a relatively easy thing to use
> Mercurial over a intranet or the internet.  I need people to be able
> to be home and still able to clone, make changes, and return their
> files back to the pool.

An excellent introduction to the mindset of Mercurial and DVCS is
http://hginit.com/ - this may help you wrap your head around some of the
differences between something like FTP and Mercurial.  Speaking as someone
who used to use FTP like it sounds like you do, Mercurial is a /vast/
improvement, but it is different, and takes a little getting used to.  Where
the person is when they are cloning is entirely dependent on your server
setup.  If you create a central repository that is world readable (like
http://mercurial.selenic.com/hg) then anyone anywhere can read it, and
anyone with permission can push to it.  If, on the other hand, you lock your
server down more so that only certain people or places can access it, then
of course only those people and places can get to the repository.


> Am I just barking up the wrong tree entirely?  Is this what Mercurial
> does?  Or should I investigate other version control options?  Or just
> tell people they need the command line and they have to ssh directly
> into the /var/www/html directory to do any work?
>

Mercurial does a fantastic job of exactly what you're describing, promise!
 There is no such thing however as version control that just falls into
place magically.  It will involve design, development, and workflow changes,
and time setting up.  These changes will all be for the better in the long
run though!

Michael Diamond
dimo414 at gmail.com
www.DigitalGemstones.com <http://www.digitalgemstones.com/>
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