Revelations

I used two good references when doing DotSVN. The first is (obviously) the SVN code itself. It is written in C using Apache Portable Runtime (APR).

What I would like to highlight is the second reference that I used - which is SVNKit. SVNKit is:

... a pure Java Subversion client library. You would like to use SVNKit when you need to access or modify Subversion repository from your Java application, be it a standalone program, plugin or web application. Being a pure Java program, SVNKit doesn't need any additional configuration or native binaries to work on any OS that runs Java.

I used VStudio's 'Java Language Conversion Assistant 3.0' to create a C# version of the SVNKit code. Though it had thousands of migration errors, this exercise gave me a good idea of the effort involved in completing DotSVN. I used the skeleton code from the migration as the basis for most of the my classes.

DotSVN has a different namespace structure (as shown in the figure below):

DotSVN depends more heavily on .Net base class libraries (like Deflate stream, custom Date parsing etc). It also uses generics and collection classes more efficiently.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am personally quite happy with the progress that I could make on DotSVN. Using this library, it is currently possible to do the following operations.

• Open an FSFS SVN repository
• Enumerate its contents
• Retrieve the properties collection of each element
• Get the contents as a stream

I have also added three sample application. One is a console based application. The second one is a WinForms GUI sample that is very similar to the TortoiseSVN repository browser. The third one, is a browser based SVN repository viewer using Yahoo UI controls.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am happy to announce the first increment release of DotSVN.

DotSVN is a 100% compatible (at the repository level) port of SVN - very similar to SVNKit. It can be used to access or modify SVN repository from DotNet application, be it a standalone program or from an Asp.Net web application. As mentioned here, this project was started to support the nTrac project.

Sample .Net application build using DotSVN, accessing an FSFS file repository using 'file access'.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I came across this book by Karl Fogel on the same title. The book describes how to run a successful free software project. 90-95% of all Open Source software fails. All the more reason why this book is important.

Producing Open Source Software is a book about the human side of open source development. It describes how successful projects operate, the expectations of users and developers, and the culture of free software.

In the sprit of Open Source, this book is released under an open copyright that allows everyone to share and modify the book freely. You can get your copy here.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As discussed in my previous post, I prefer the option of embedding subversion into nTrac. I looked at available .NET implementations of SVN and the ones I could find are listed below:

• Svn.NET by PumaCode: This project is based on SubversionSharp.
• AnkhSVN: A Subversion addin for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

Svn.Net uses PInvoke to wrap SVN libraries while AnkhSVN uses managed C++. The latter is better (though I would have preferred the newer C++/CLI syntax).

Both of them are focusing only on the client access layer of SVN. I want a library that can access SVN at the repository level.

Right now, I am planning to implement this fully in .NET. Something similar to SvnKit, which is a full-fledged implementation of SVN in Java.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 2:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have decided to take some time off, and focus on nTrac. I am in the process of defining the scope for the same.

My thoughts on the initial version are as follows:

• This is targeted towards Windows developers. The product should scale from a single user to a group of users very easily. 
• Ease of deployment is very important. The basic install will have source-control (SVN) and web based tracking up-and-running.
• The product will have very little external dependency - It should work on an XP box with .Net and nothing else.
• The Desktop deployment' should will a customized version of the Cassini Web server and will run off the system tray (very similar to ScrewTurn Wiki desktop edition).

To enable this level of ease of deployment, I prefer the option of embedding subversion into the product. A good .Net binding for Subversion will definitely help.

I will continue to update the progress that I am making here.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wanted to create a DotNet port for Trac. This will facilitate easy deployment and maintenance for Windows users. I will also adopt the same 'minimalistic approach' to web-based software project management.

Here is the URL to the project.

Posted by George Chiramattel at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)