project management / multiple versions

Question

I am looking here for some hints and tips on how to manage multiple versions of a projet.

Currently I have a development version of the application which includes some improvements and new functionnalities. In meanwhile I have to do some bug resolving. It is easy to fix the bugs on files that have not been touched by new functionnalitites but as soon as I touch the page that have the new func. I need to comment several lines of code each time. I feel it is not the best way to play around. There must be a method good enought to solve this issue.

On another side of the problem is the deployment. It is quite often that I must wait several weeks before uploading a new functionnality on the website. In meanwhile I tend to forget sometimes each files that have been modified (or commented for bugs) and it can create errors. I have heard of capistrano for ruby fans, could that help me ? I am mostly a PHP/asp.net developper.

Answer 1

You are experiencing the classical case of "incompatible development effort":
you cannot both fix a bug and develop on the same file on the same time.

This is a classical case for branching, which would allow for a same file to:

• freeze its state to the one initially deployed (stating point for the branch)
• fix the bug in a bugfix branch
• retrofit some of those bugs into the current development branch
• develop new features in the development branch.

If you are not comfortable with the immediate setup of a VCS (Version Control System), you could at least duplicate the tree of files representing your server into 2 directories (one 1.0 and one 'DEV'), effectively doing some "manual" revision control.
Then a tool like WinMerge would help you to track the difference and do some merging

But a true VCS would be more efficient, and can be used as a stable source for deployment, as illustrated by this Best version-control for a one-man web-app question (with subversion).
That version-controlled source can also be used by a deployment system like capistrano.