php, zend debugging, svn setup for many developers

Question

I'm trying to create an environment for many users to develop many php projects on.

I've installed Zend server community edition on a Windows 2003 server. I've shared the apache/htdocs folder.

Each user has a their own folder in htdocs, say:

/htdocs/bob/
/htdocs/sarah/
/htdocs/michael/
...

With the projects they are working on in their folder, say:

/bob/accountingSoftware/
/bob/eCommerceSite/
/bob/newCMS/
...

Within that project folder they will have an svn checkout, say:

/accountingSoftware/trunk/
/accountingSoftware/tag/
/accountingSoftware/branch/

This works well, however svn is now incredibly slow because it's working on a network drive. Can anyone suggest a solution to this?

I'm planning on getting each developer to use Eclipse, and take advantage of the Zend server debugging features. But I'm not clear on how to do this, is my setup appropriate for this?

I'm only testing this setup with a few developers at the moment, so I'd prefer to make any big structural changes/improvements now.

I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I would recommend installing a local Zend server on each developer's computer and have your shared server be running the current trunk code.

This allows each developer to restart the server when they need, and allows them to work locally and not worry about a network drive.

It also allows you to have a shared location where the latest code from everyone can be run without worrying about partially completed changes from each user.

If you try to have all your developers working on a single server, you will always have some number of developers that you cannot support. By having everyone work locally, you can have as many developers as you need.