[development] Active databases and development/test/production environment

[Earnie Boyd]

Quoting J-P Stacey <jp.stacey at torchbox.com>:

> Hi Earnie,
>
>> I hope and have assumed you're aware of the multi-sites features for 
>> version 5?
>
> Yes, but it doesn't really solve the problem if we have several 
> copies of a client's site on the same server with each developer 
> working on a copy:
>
> 	sites/jp.client.example.com
> 	sites/fred.client.example.com
>
> Because both are subversion'ed, both settings.php will be the same; 
> both will therefore access the same database without some sort of 
> hack, and Fred might find his development stymied by my db changes.
>

As Victor pointed out you can set svn to ignore the settings.php file.  
Also setting it as read only prevents an accidental overwrite.

> If Fred changes his settings.php to point to the database 
> db_drupal_client_fred, then he's in danger of checking that in and 
> (a) me getting the same change when I grab any updates from the 
> repository or (b) worse, that change hitting the live site, which 
> immediately keels over.
>

Maybe a change to settings.php is in order to where

<?php
if (file_exists('db.settings.php')) {
    include_once 'db.settings.php';
}
?>

and db.settings.php is never stored in the VCS.

> Everything ought to go through a test site, of course, but this 
> becomes a potential point of failure if urgent work is needed and the 
> test site is underused.
>

Urgent work usually requires urgent failures. :t  I don't like sitting 
on 12 hour long calls hand holding the client while development fixes 
the issues that went untested for a release.  Yes, my ``daytime'' job 
is application support.

Earnie