developing on shared stacks

[J. Landman Gay]

Dar Scott <dsc at swcp.com> wrote:

> I've been having trouble with version branching emerging from my 
> habits.  I work on the same stack on OS X and on XP.  Sometimes on 
> other systems.  Unfortunately they diverge.
> 
> To address this, I'm planning on putting them in one place and 
> accessing the same stack.  That means I might work on a stack from OS X 
> one day and then work on it from XP the next day.
> 
> I assume the stack is written only upon save.

Correct.

> Any potential problems?

I've had good success with this, not only sharing across computers, but 
sharing an open stack simultaneously between MetaCard and Revolution -- 
I work in both environments at the same time from various computers. It 
is really pretty cool. The idea is the same whether you are sharing a 
stack between computers or between IDEs or both. You make changes to the 
stack, then save it to disk. In the other IDE, or on the other computer, 
type "revert" into the message box or use the Revert menu item, which 
forces the IDE to reload the stack from disk. The changes that were made 
on the other computer, or in the other IDE, show up in the stack 
immediately after it is reloaded.

Since my clients send me both MC and Rev files, I often have the same 
stack open in both environments on my Mac and work on it in both places 
simultaneously. Sometimes I also open the stack across the network on my 
Windows machine. The only problem I've run into so far is a wetware 
issue: I have to remember which machine or IDE needs to do the "save" 
and which one needs to do the "revert".

> Is there an advantage to sharing from one or the other?  (such as 
> mailing stacks to others from OS X and getting the type sent, too)

If you want to keep the Mac creator and type codes, probably saving on 
the Mac will work better. But it is trivial to reset those later if you 
end up moving the stack from a PC to a Mac, so it is no big deal. In 
Rev, just open the stack on a Mac and save it, and you'll get the 
type/creator codes automatically re-applied.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com