Essential CVS

By Jennifer Vesperman
June 2003
Pages: 336
ISBN 10: 0-596-00459-1 | ISBN 13: 9780596004590
(5) (Average of 3 Customer Reviews)

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Description

Essential CVS is a complete and easy-to-follow reference that helps programmers and system administrators apply order to the task of managing large quantities of documents. The book covers basic concepts and usage of CVS, and features a comprehensive reference for CVS commands--including a handy Command Reference Card for quick, on-the-job checks. The book also includes advanced information on all aspects of CVS that involved automation, logging, branching and merging, and "watches."
Full Description

CVS, the Concurrent Versions System, is the popular source-code management tool that frees developers from the chaos that too often ensues when multiple users work on the same file. An open source technology that is available on most computer platforms, including Windows® and Mac OS® X, CVS is widely used to manage program code, web site content, and to track changes made to system configuration files. Multiple users can check out files from a directory tree, make changes, and then commit those changes back into the directory. If two developers modify the same file, CVS enables both sets of changes to be merged together into one final file. Although CVS is a lifesaver in many development scenarios, it suffers from poor documentation. But with Essential CVS, developers can have it all: the order that CVS brings and the comprehensive documentation developers need. Essential CVS is a complete and easy-to-follow reference that helps programmers and system administrators apply order to the task of managing large quantities of documents. The book covers basic concepts and usage of CVS, and features a comprehensive reference for CVS commands--including a handy Command Reference Card for quick, on-the-job checks. The book also includes advanced information on all aspects of CVS that involve automation, logging, branching and merging, and "watches." Readers will find in-depth coverage of the following:

Installing CVS and building your first repository
Basic use of CVS, including importing projects, checking out projects, committing changes, and updating projects
Tagging, branching and merging
Working with multiple users
Clients, operating systems, and IDEs
Repository management and managing remote repositories
Project administration, including bug tracking systems, enforcing log messages, history and annotation, and more.
Troubleshooting

Version control is essential to maintaining order in any project, large or small. Any CVS user, from beginners to team leaders and system administrators, will find this practical guide to CVS indispensable in getting the most from this valuable tool.

Featured customer reviews

Essential... yep!, November 23 2004

Rating:

Submitted by KarlsKamera [Respond | View]

This book is well organized, logically layed out, it has an excellent index, the cited samples are plentiful and useful.

In the series of outstanding O'Reilly books, this one stands out. The author seems to have anticipated every question I'd have, and written a clear, concise, authoritative and accurate answer. It manages to cover the material without a lot of extraneous fluff, while avoiding being compleltely dry.

On a scale of 1 to 10, this one rates an eleven.

Essential CVS Review, July 11 2003

Rating:

Submitted by Larry Scott [Respond | View]

I am an IT professional in Silicon Valley who is constantly called upon

to jump from mainframes to unix minis, to Windows, to C++, to java to

......I can do all but an expert at none. I was recently called

upon to implement CVS and WinCVS for a subsidiary of Siemens. I had

very little experience with CVS prior to buying this book. To make a

long story short, I purchase this book and had CVS up and running

with WinCVS clients in a few days. I even understand what I was doing

and why I was doing it. This book contained the exact information I

needed in a perfect "how to" format...thank you for

an excellent book !

Essential CVS Review, July 08 2003

Rating:

Submitted by Doug Toppin [Respond | View]

this is an excellent book that is well organized for use both

as a tutorial and as a reference. i've found several sections of

it immediately useful and recommend it to anyone interested in

or using cvs.

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Media reviews "As you might hope, the writing throughout the book is clear and precise, and there are plenty of hints and tips sprinkled liberally throughout. It's hard to imagine some question you may have about CVS or its use which is not answered somewhere in this book, and even if you are fairy expert on CVS, there's bound to be some extra tips and tricks you can pick up here."
Rating: 8/10
--Nick Veitch, "Linux Format," December 2003

"If you're looking for a low-cost entry into the world of version control software, the open source CVS package is a very logical choice. But like most open source packages, the documentation is less than perfect if you want something more than just a reference manual for learning purposes. It's at this point you need a book that explains a bit more about the why's of what you need to do. This book fills that gap nicely...If you do decide to go with CVS, get a copy of this book to supplement the official documentation. Recommended."
--Thomas Duff, Portland Domino/Notes User Group, October 2003
http://www.valu.org/QuickPlace/pd-nug/Main.nsf/h_Discussion/765AAC628C23724686256DBF00138894/?OpenDocument

"There are two outstanding features of this book: 1. Jennifer Vesperman writes in a clear, fluent but friendly and understandable manner throughout the entire book. 2. Each important subject is peppered with pertinent advice and warnings for the unaware. Whilst the standard of most O'Reilly books is generally high, I must say that this book has clearly been targeted at an audience who wants to know the how and the why but in a way which is not patronising and never boring. I recommend this CVS book to anyone considering using CVS. I'd especially recommend it to those who start to use CVS's more advanced features such as tags and branches. It contains a lot of handy information and its reference section will make the book useful even after having digested the rest of the books contents."
--David Lloyd, linmagau.org, July 2003

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