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Ask Slashdot: How Best To Synchronize Projects Between Shared Drive and PCs?

Posted by timothy on from the phrase-your-answer-in-the-form-of-a-cookie dept.

Koookiemonster writes "Our company has many projects, each one with a folder on a Samba drive (Z:\). Our problem is syncing only the programmers' current projects (~30 at any time) between Z:\ and their C:\Projects\-folder on five Windows 7 laptops. If we sync the whole Z:\-drive, our projects folders would be filled with too many subfolders, making it difficult to navigate. The folders contain OpenPCS projects (PLC) and related files (Word, Excel, PDF documents); a common project folder is 50 MB. Is there any easy to use, low-budget sync software with scripting, so that we could e.g. only sync folders that exist locally?" (Read more details, below, of what Koookiemonster is looking for.) "Many programs do support selective sync, but choosing what to sync is awkward; projects and who works on them change daily. It is important that subscribing to a project is as easy as copying it from Z:\ to C:\projects\. The Z:\-folder with all of our current and past projects is located on a desktop PC running Ubuntu Linux. It can share files e.g. via Samba or FTP. All PCs are on the same (W)LAN. Off-site backups of Z:\ are taken care of via rsync. The company has three programmers, who usually handle their own projects alone, but very often others need to add files to projects. Bigger projects need more programmers. Currently we use FreeFileSync with a custom piece of Javascript to make batch files that synchronize e.g. folders C:\projects\123_ProjectName\ and Z:\123_ProjectName\ if the local folder exists. However, that solution lacks versioning, real-time sync and deletion support. It only syncs when we press a button, and then older files are overwritten by newer files (two way sync; older files go to a "sync-deletions"-folder).

PS. Bonus points for solutions that allow renaming project folders without renaming them on all laptops."

17 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. stop trying, use git instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you are welcome

    1. Re:stop trying, use git instead by camperdave · · Score: 5, Informative

      stop trying, use git instead

      ... or one of the many alternatives.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    2. Re:stop trying, use git instead by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's truel However I definitely have seen the syndrome of people not acknowledging software not created by Microsoft, or asking for bizarre or counterproductive requirements (sharepoint). Most Unix users who don't understand this stuff at least tend to follow along with whatever the team uses or project manager suggests.

    3. Re:stop trying, use git instead by gnapster · · Score: 4, Informative

      svn is appealing in this case because you can check out subdirectories of a repo without downloading the whole thing, which is more similar to his current organization.

    4. Re:stop trying, use git instead by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Informative

      You apparently don't have the slightest clue how git works, nor how to use it properly. I certainly am no git guru, but have no issues with using multiple git repos in projects, building sub-systems out of it, nor branching and merging, which it truly excels at. I wouldn't wish SVN on anyone that wants to use branching. It's about as brain-dead as it can get and still "function", barely. The only thing SVN has going for it is that it is almost atomic, whereas CVS, MKS, etc, absolutely aren't. ClearCase is a separate system that can be used, but requires a full time expert admin for anything more than basic code repos. At least it handles branching almost sensibly. Mercurial was in the running, but at the time git had (and still has) a larger user base with active improvements in various tools associated with it for my needs, thus I chose git.

      Learn a tool before you wrongly despise it publicly. You are wrong on every count:

      • You don't get a full copy of everything on every system if you don't want it. You can just check out a single branch.
      • Every copy is not a full backup. See previous line item.
      • Selective work is easier in git, you can clone the item(s) desired, branch locally, and merge when complete, pushing only if desired.

      Lastly, you can essentially "checkin" every change for a full history of what you did on a local branch, revert, merge other branches, etc, with no effect on the main dev branch(es). And you can do all this without even being connected to a "main" server. Maintaining parallel branches with constant merges is cake compared to SVN and other central repo schemes. There really is no situation where I'd rather use SVN or anything like it that I can think of, when I have a choice.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    5. Re:stop trying, use git instead by philip.paradis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Perhaps you haven't spent enough time with git. I've used it for years to manage data stores with content ranging from rST documentation bound for rendering to a very widely read open source "howto" site (with constant edits and merges from a small team of technical writers) to large scale development projects. In fact, I use it for all my file and source control to this day, and my employer's dev group uses it as well to manage a rather extensive codebase responsible for driving an enterprise cloud hosting provider's operations.

      If you've had problems with git, you should be aware that there's a huge community out there ready and willing to assist you with whatever workflow you've decided to adopt. One of the nicer things about git is the fact that you can use it in a very SVN-like manner if you like, or you can make as many branches as you want and manage things in a very distributed manner. Again, I suspect your primary problem is lack of experience.

      --
      Write failed: Broken pipe
  2. Revision Control? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This sounds like the ramblings of someone who has never heard of revision control.

    1. Re:Revision Control? by camperdave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe he's one of the Ten Thousand

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  3. A Small Voice In the Wilderness Calls Out by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Informative

    USE VERSION CONTROL!!!!

    Git
    Mercurial
    Perforce
    Subversion
    Vesta
    CVS
    ClearCase
    VSS
    StarTeam

    The choices are legion. What you are doing is not a choice.

    Pick a version control system and your life will be much easier (after the learning curve).

    1. Re:A Small Voice In the Wilderness Calls Out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why close? We can now start the entertaining flamewars about which version control software is the only reasonable one! ;-)

    2. Re:A Small Voice In the Wilderness Calls Out by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've used many of the above. Here are some comments (the first four are free):

      1. Git - really capable tool, with opaque command model. Maybe not for newbs. Managers hate using it (one reason to like it). Has good cloud support with GitHub.

      2. Mercurial - pretty easy to use. Great if your projects don't have large binary files. It's a good introductory decentralized repo tool.

      3. Subversion - pretty good if you want a centralized repo.

      4. CVS - your father's version control system. Still way better than not having version control.

      5. ClearCase - good in the hands of a ClearCase specialist. Would not be my choice for a small team of version control newbs.

      6. VSS - My experiences with it were not good. I hear it's improved. I'd look at it ONLY if I was in a Microsoft only shop.

  4. Subsetting a repository of files by Empiric · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sounds exactly like what an RCS like Subversion is good for.

    Each user pulls down the directories relevant to him/her from the overall repository, updates at will from the central source, and pushes up changes at will with a couple of mouse clicks.

    TortoiseSVN will even give you handy little icons on your local folders in Explorer to tell you if what you have in your local directory isn't synced with the central server, and it's two clicks to make that happen. I actually think you don't want to "force synchronization" on an ongoing basis, seems like a great way to overwrite a lot of your developers' (and others') ongoing work.

    --
    ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
  5. Don't try syncing files by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Syncing files like this is a mess. Perhaps you should look beyond share drives. You are trying to solve the technical problem, but if you step back you might see a business problem. Consider 3 alternative approaches:
    1) Keep the files on the share drive and do not mirror them locally.
    2) Use a source control system (Ex: GIT, TFS, Subversion)
    3) Use a groupware / content management system / document management system. ( Ex: Sharepoint, Confluence, QDMS, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, Drupal, SAP, Groupwise)

    Knowing the right terms helps find the software you need. Here are some links to Wikipedia which has the right terms, and some lists of software:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Management_Systems
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_management
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collaborative_software#Comparison_of_notable_software

  6. It's sad by msobkow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's sad to see an entire team of supposedly "professional" developers which have never heard of version control.

    You can't even blame it on the Windows environment -- MSVS supports hooks for several version control systems either natively or through plugins/addons.

    This whole story just reeks of some manager saying "We can't afford to set that up -- it would take too much time" any time someone has suggested it.

    Because I flat out refuse to believe the entire team doesn't know any better.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:It's sad by WuphonsReach · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because I flat out refuse to believe the entire team doesn't know any better.

      It's way more common then you'd think. I worked for a company back in 2000, with close to 20 developers. Not a single one of them knew how to do version control. Instead, they all resorted to making copies of files, tacking on dates or times or just numbers, and relying on the backup tapes if they had to undo a particular change. It was hellish and you'd hear at least one conversation per week where they were trying to figure out who had the latest version of XYZ.

      I rolled out VSS (hey, it was 2000, our choices were limited) with SourceOffSite for the remote workers. If I did it today, it would be either Hg, git or svn.

      Very few schools back in the 90s or early part of the decade taught VCS concepts or forced students to use them. This is slowly changing with the advent of things like 'github' which has a big mindshare and introduces people to the concept of VCS.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  7. What are your programmers doing? by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Funny

    You said you have programmers working on these projects. They probably each have their own preferred way to do this, why not ask them? If they can't come to a consensus, you could have them write their own solution.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  8. An analogy. by pclminion · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I'm a contractor. I have a team of carpenters who are tasked with building a house. It seems this is going to require the driving of a large number of nails. My team of carpenters would like to know what sort of tool or mechanism would work best to drive these nails. Right now, we have one guy who holds the nail while another guy hits it with his thermos. This does eventually drive in the nail, but 90% of the time the nail bends, and it's denting our thermoses. I wonder if there exists some genius, super-carpenter bad-ass out there who might be able to suggest a better way."