Quote:
Originally Posted by ICanCountTo19
Care to elaborate on what this is?
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Subversion is a revision control system that's designed for tracking changes in code. There is one server that stores the state of the repository, and all previous versions. Students check out all or part of the repository, make modifications, and then commit their changes back to the server. This ensures that there will always be one place where the latest version of the software, model, or whatever else you have checked in is stored. You can also check out any previous version that was checked in, so if someone broke something, you can go back in time and check out a previous version that you know is good. Subversion has mechanisms for dealing with conflicts, where two students change the same thing and both go to check it in.
971 has been using SVN for storing our code and CAD models since 2008 and help introduce it to 254/968 in 2009. As Adam said, it has a little bit of a learning curve for non-programmers, but works well. I like it since nobody on our team shares files using thumb disks any more. They instead check it in, and yell across the room for the other guy to update and pull down the changes. This also ensures that anyone on the team can work on the model at any point in time, since all they need to do to get the latest version is to do an update, and then commit when they are done (If people work in this way without talking with others and seeing if someone else is working on a part, things don't go well, but once the communication has happened, the workflow still works).
SVN isn't integrated into the CAD software like some of the other tools are, but for us, that's almost a plus. We can easily run our own server, make sure it's backed up, and store other things in the repository like our code, Chairman's, tshirt designs, you name it.
If you have any more questions, between Adam, Nick and I, and all the other members on our teams who are using it, we can probably provide an answer.