Alex Rivera | Logout

Alternative to binaries in Subversion

Asked 2009-04-02T11:43:53.817
23

Some of my colleagues are convinced that committing build artefacts to the subversion repository is a good idea. The argument is that this way, installation and update on the test machines is easy - just "svn up"!

I'm sure there are weighty arguments against this bad practice, but all I can think of are lame ones like "it takes up more room". What are the best, killer reasons to not do this? And what other approaches should we do instead?

This is for Java code if that makes a difference. Everything is compiled from Eclipse (with no automated PDE builds).

When I say add the build artifacts, I mean a commit would look like this:

"Added the new Whizbang feature"

 M src/foo/bar/Foo.java
 M bin/Foo.jar

Each code change has the corresponding generated jar file.

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2 Answers

2

One good reason would be to quickly get an executable running on a new machine. In particular if the build environment takes a while to set up. (Load compilers, 3rd party libraries and tools, etc.)

answered 2009-04-02T11:53:45.227
1

On my projects, I usually have post-build hooks to build from a special working copy on the server, namely in a path reachable from a HTTP browser. That means, after every commit, anyone [who can read the internal web] can easily download the relevant binaries. No consistency problems, instant updating + a path towards automated testing.

answered 2009-04-02T13:25:06.210

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