HOW-TO: Subversion on Windows

Spent a week trying out Subversion, as a replacement for Starteam which (in our old version) doesn't support branching.

Summary: Subversion works well on Windows. TortoiseSVN is OK but the integration within File Explorer is a bit disconcerting since it lets you check-in to any trunk or branch. I would prefer a 'Set current svn URL' feature.

Setting up the subversion server
I used svnserve (their daemon) instead of Apache, because (a) our needs are simple, and (b) svnserve is a bit faster.

1. Downloaded svn1.0.5-setup.exe from http://subversion.tigris.org/. Download firedaemon (the Lite version which is free). Have it run c:\program files\subversion\bin\svnserve.exe -d -r c:\svn. This runs svnserve as a service so it gets loaded automatically at boot time and no one can close it by mistake.

2. download Tortoise SVN?-1.0.6-UNICODE_svn-1.0.4.msi. We use ASP.NET and there's a problem with tsvn's use of ".svn" directory names. The modified version
of tsvn that we downloaded uses "_svn".

3. Create a directory to keep your repositories (c:\svn\products). We chose one big repository for all our product source code (2 products, 3 versions of each) because this
makes porting changes between versions straightforward.

* create c:\svn\products
* svnadmin create \svn\products
* edit the .conf files in products\conf for authentication
see 3.2.4 in Tortoise SVN? manual

basically change the conf/svnserve.conf file to have

[general]
anon-access = none
auth-access = write
password-db = password.conf

This requires people to type a login. You need to create the password.conf file in the same dir.

No need to restart svnserve.exe when you change this file.

[users]
joe=angle
sue=water4

* create c:\layout and under it create sub-directories for both products vbvoice and vbsalt.
vbvoice \ trunk
\ branches
\ tags
vbsalt \ trunk
\ branches
\ tags
* copy a full set of files from s: to vbvoice\trunk.
* tsvn right-click on c:\layout and do Import to '''svn://localhost/svn/products'''
* now you can

Additional projects such as Installs or Builds should be their own repository created with svnadmin create. Each repository should get its own dir under c:\svn. These should be checked-out if possible to somewhere else than S: on dev machines to avoid mixups. But multiple repos in S: works (see SubversionTips)

Ignoring Files & Directories
Directories: tsvn Add To Ignore List . This add svn:ignore property in the parent directory. For directories at the root of S:, you can't see the TSVN property dialog, so view the unmapped dir that you SUBST'd, eg. D:\source52. You can clear the ignore on this dialog.

Registry has a system-wide global-ignore list of extensions and files to ignore. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Tigris.org\Subversion\Config\miscellany But this is set via the TSN Settings dialog box.

There is also a config file and auth logins saved at C:\Documents and Settings\Ian Rae?\Application Data\Subversion


Development Machine setup
* install svn + tsvn
* create a directory structure like c:\layout above but call it d:\source. Do it on the drive where you keep your data files (such as d:)
* map S: to d:\source\trunk
* view S: in file explorer
* tsvn right-click and do check-out from '''svn://raidbuild/products/vbvoice/trunk'''

Files To Check In
tsvn Commit+cancel is fastest (doesn't contact repos). tsvn Check for Updates is good but chokes on "in-use" files. icon overlays helpful but may be slow.

Files To Check Out
tsvn Check for Updates. Remote status will be 'modified' or 'added' for all files to check out.

Files Not In Project
tsvn Add (use Add To Ignore list on directories, such as IntermediateFiles that you don't want to add to the project).
or tsvn Commit+cancel and check the 'show unversioned files'. However the checkbox is sticky and it may show all sorts of other files unless you configure the ignore lists.

Files In Project
just look in File Explorer (icon). Or use Repo-browser.
Update (getting latest code from repository to your source tree
Commit first then Update. Resolve conflicts

create file & dir
tsvn Add and later Commit

create branch, merge branch
tsvn Branch/Tag... and type '''svn://svn/products/vbvoice/branches/rel5.2'''
now remap S: to a new branch dir, such as d:/source/products/vbvoice/branches/rel5.2
tsvn right-click on S:\ and Checkout the rel5.2 branch.
''svn remembers what trunk or branch your files are at, so you can always do Commit/cancel to see, either on S: or the actual directory''
..now S: has the branch code, make your changes, commit...


merge branch
Once you final branch changes haved been checked-in, do the following:
1. write down the revision # of your final branch commit. (or just do Update which shows you the current branch revision number)
2. Subst S: back to the trunk version
3. Do TSVN right-click '''Merge''' and enter the branch URL and it's creation revision (usually labelled "copy" or the reversion after the last merged revision (see SubversionSampleBranchAndMerge)). If its not the first time you've merged from this branch then you need to enter the revision ''before'' the first new revision that hasn't yet been merged. For example, if you have branch revisions as shown below, then you need to enter "10" in the Merge dialog box since you merging ''everything changed since revision 10''.
14 my latest fixes
10 last weeks fixes

4. resolve any conflicts (the Merge log window will say "conflict" for each conflicted file). tsvn Edit Conflicts. then tsvn Resolved to clean up tmp files.
5. '''Commit''' the changes done by '''Merge'''. BE SURE to include branch revision numbers (from steps 1 and 3 above) in the Commit log message. eg. "merged bran2 r11-14 agentx changes".

The CD has left the building!

Wow. After months of development, VBSalt 1.0 shipped. The blue and silver CDs arrived today from the printers. They look great. It's hard to believe that months of work turns into just a bunch of bits.

I saw the movie “Pieces of April” last week. It’s about a woman, April, who is trying to cook Thanksgiving dinner in her little apartment. The stove breaks, and she spends most of the movie wandering her apartment building trying to borrow a stove. Things get worse. The bird gets kidnapped. A dog bites off a leg. She starts to think this dammed turkey will never get cooked.

If you’re thinking that wandering the halls with a half-cooked turkey in your arms sounds a lot like developing a software product, you would be right. Well, our “bird” is ready thanks to the unending persistence of

Fouad & Jim (chefs)

Dicky, Hui, and Val (associate chefs)

Mark and Bela (chief tasters)

Melanie (invitations)

Mark and Andrew (menu selection)

Calling Microsoft

Now that John Lawrence has moved to a new position, his blog is no longer dealing with Speech Server. We need some other Microsofters who work on speech server or the SASDK to start blogging.

For instance, today we were dealing with a false barge-in problem on our MSS-based Auto-Attendant. There are a bunch of TIM and SES settings for controlling the sensitivity of the speech detector. Without a lot of playing around it's hard to know which one to use. A great subject for a little blog from the folks who know, like the one
The Old New Thing does so well.

When we learn how to prevent false barge-in, I'll post here.

SALT vs VXML : Part 1 - XML is not a programming language

moved to http://www.computertelephony.org/blog/index.php?p=25

Jail cells do not have windows!

From the Fish Don't Notice Water file:

A standard feature of movie jail cells seems to be a window with bars and no glass. The hero can chat with friends standing outside or (more commonly) receive escape materials through the window. What gives? This is some sort of cultural QWERTY phenomenum, a cliche so engrained it doesn't get changed. It's been decades since a jail cell had glassless windows, or even windows at all.

The Name: Silent Software

The name of this blog refers to a quality of good server software, it sits in the corner and just works. The fact that people forget about it, or at least take it for granted, is an indication of success. But silent software is not about software that is mute; servers should log copiously when asked to, and fail loudly.

"Just works" is a perception, not a physical characteristic. Lack of quality for a product can be defined as the gap between reality and expectations. It's just as important for a product to manage expectations as it is to manage the product itself. Especially new technology like speech recognition, where expectations can easily be set sky high. There is an interesting graph in Speech Server white paper showing how increasing CPU speed will improve recognition quality over the next number of years. The challenge for the next few years is finding domains where the current speech rec software can work well.

Testing, testing, testing

Hello, world\n :)

I'm new to Blogger and to blogging so we'll take this slow.

This will be a blog about two things. First, I have an interest in the process of developing software
software, including agile practices, software architectures, and project tracking.

Secondly, I'm interested telephony and in particular speech recognition applications. This stems from my current position at Pronexus, working on two telephony toolkits VBVoice and VBSalt. VBSalt 1.0 is being released shortly, to coincide with Microsoft Speech Server.