Our relatively small development team is getting a bit sick of Dreamweaver. The only functionality that we're reliant on is its file check in system. As the team is likely to grow over the next few months we need to address these issues.
Subversion has come to our attention but are unsure if it will suit our requirements.
All we need is to be made aware of whether or not someone is working on a particular file before we request it from the server and to block any overriding of a checked out file.
Any recommendations or advice on general best development practices would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
The way this is generally done with SVN is to not "block" people the way you ask for : on the contrary, SVN allows for several developpers to work on the same file, and the modifications each one made are then "merged".
This merge is mostly automatic ; but when it is "too complex" (like when two developpers modified the same portion of a file), one human being has to resolve the "conflicts", indicating which modifications from which developper has to be kept.
This way of working by merges, instead of locks, seems a bit unusual at first, but once you get it (you'll need to take some time to explain your team about it, and how to use it efficiently, of course), it works really nice : I've used SVN on projects with more than 10 developpers, with absolutly no problem (a few conflicts once in a while, but you solve them and that's it).
On the other side, locking files so only one developper can work on it can block the whole team : what if one file is locked by a guy, and he goes for a coffee-break ? And at this same moment, someone else need to modify the same file to be able to work ?
For more informations about SVN, you can take a look at this online book. It give lots of useful informations :-) (you will probably not need all of that, but a quick look can do no harm ^^ )
As a sidenote, if you are developping in PHP, on a big application, an IDE like Eclipse PDT can help a lot ; and there are plugins, like Subversive, that can be used to integrate SVN access into Eclispe.
There are a number of version control solutions you can look into. Are you sure you want to restrict people from working on similar files? Users can fork the development branch and have their own, when they check in any conflicts will need to be merged together. Some of the version controls come with tools to handle most of the conflicts for you.
It's not always a good idea to lock files that another developer may need to make modifications for. One problem you can run into is if the person with the file checkout is out of the office and their machine is inaccessible.
If that is functionality that you MUST have most of the version controls will allow you to configure your branch to work in such a way.
A few of the version controls out there are: CVS, SVN, Git, SourceSafe, ClearCase
If you decide to use SVN with dreamweaver, there's an extension to integrate some of the commands into the ide: Subweaver
Subversion is ok for our team. We're trying to decide if we should lock files or use the default copy-modify-merge model. Could you give me some examples of when you would have multiple developers on the same file. It sounds a little bizzare as I can't see why it can't be a one man job.
Related
I've noticed while developing my first site, that the smallest changes in database columns, connection options, and various other components cause the website to fail until I correct the problem which may or may not require a lot of time (woe is me). I'm wondering what steps I can take now in order to prevent these headaches, as I've delayed the website launch in order to keep upgrading. Once I'm done implementing the changes I would like to see, I know I won't truly be done, but at some point I have to move on to the next stage.
Yes, I know there is probably no one good solution, and ultimately a self-correcting design is more trouble than its worth at this point. But if any
grey beards have any tips that they could offer based on their own experiences working with WebDev, particularly with LAMP stacks, I would greatly appreciate it.
Specifically, I would like to know what to look out for when modifying databases and website code after customer information is in active use, in order to prevent errors, and how to roll out the changes.
EDIT 1:
Yes, so the answer seems to be that I need to copy the live site to my testing environment. I'm looking going to some of the already suggested development solutions. Regular backups are crucial, but I can just see inserting new columns and modifying queries as a cause for mis-ordered tables and such. "That's where being a good programmer and testing diligently comes in handy", someone in the corner said. As I look into the proposed solutions, I welcome all others in the meantime. A real-time copy of the 'live-site' would be nice to create on the fly during testing.
The above answers are all very valid and in the end, they represent your target solution.
In the meantime, you may already do a lot for your website, even with a gradual migration to those practices.
In order to do so, I suggest you to install PHPUnit (or whatever Unit comes with the web languages you use). There are also "graphical" versions of it, like VisualPHPUnit, if that's more of your taste.
These tools are not the permanent solution. You should actually aim adding them to your permanent solution, that is setting up development server etc.
However, even as interim solution they help you reach a fairly stable degree of quality for your software components and avoid 80-90% of the surprises that come with coding on a live server.
You can develop your code in a separate directory and test it before you move it into production. You can create mock objects which your code under test may freely interact with, without fear of repercussions. Your tests may load their own alternate configuration so they work on a second, copy database.
Moving even further, you may include your website into tests itself. There are several applications like Selenium that allow you both to automate and test your production website, so that you can reliably know that your latest changes did not negatively affect your website semantics.
In short, while you should certainly aim at getting a proper development environment running, you can do something very good even today, with few hours of study.
Start using some (maybe simplified) sort of release management:
Maintain a development environment. Either locally, or in a second .htaccess-protected folder online. Make it use it´s own db.
Test every change in this dev env. Once you are satisfied, move them to productive env.
Use git or svn (svn might be simpler to learn, but opinions vary. Checkout "tortoise") to save a snapshot ("commit") of every change you make. That way you can diff throu your latest commits if anything goes wrong.
Maintain regular backups.
I've been reading this site here and there and appears as though you guys have a wonderful community.
As for my background, I am a sophomore at university familiar with SQL, C++, Visual Basic, and some PHP. One of my school projects for the summer term involves building a web application that allows users to log in and schedule specific timeslots over the internet. Typically, I have been the only person working on a project, but in this case I will be part of a group. Since we're all relatively new to working as a team, I would like to set up source control for my group so we're not all working off a shared drive somewhere. Additionally, I would like to make sure that all of us are able to test our changes in some sort of development server that hosts an instance of our website.
My actual question is in regards to the toolset that we should use to achieve this. As a group, we are most familiar with PHP and MySQL so we'll end up using that for the code and database. I have used SVN in the past for my own personal use, but my group members aren't very familiar with source control. We'll probably stick with something simple like Excel for the project management and bug tracking side of things. Ideally, we would like the tools to be free and open source.
How as a group should we manage the construction of the actual application? Are there methods out there that I can use that will allow any one of us to move the files to our development machine and keep track of who did it so we don't end up overwriting each other's changes? If this is not possible, one of us will write some scripts to handle it - but I would like to avoid building basically a separate software application that will only be used to manage our project. Another issue I foresee will be updating the database running on the development machine. Are there any standardised methods that we can use to manage our SQL scripts among the four of us?
I do not expect a really long winded answer here (after all, this is our project!), but any helpful tips would be greatly appreciated. Once I return from holiday I am looking forward to getting started! Thanks!
I recommend your group use source control to synchronize your code. You can either setup your own server or just use a free provider such as github, Google code, or bitbucket.
If you do decide to use one of these sites, a nice feature is that they provide free issue tracking as well, so you can use that instead of Excel.
The best way to manage the SQL scripts is to break them out into separate files and place them under source control as well. You can either create .sql files, or use a tool to manage these changes - for example, have a look at Ruby on Rails' Migrations. This may take some effort to setup, but you'll thank yourself later if you are working on a project of any size...
Draw up a plan for how you would do it if it were just you.
Split the plan up into tasks that take around 3-4 hours to complete. Make sure each task has a measurable objective.
Divy out the tasks. Try to sort them if possible to maximize developer efficiency.
Teach them to use source control. Explain to them that they will use this (maybe not svn, but SOMETHING) in a few years, so they might as well learn how now. Additionally, this will help in every group project they do down the road.
Make a script for building and running your tests. Also script your deployment. This will ensure you have the same mechanism going to live as you do going to test, which increases the number of defects found in testing. (This is as opposed to letting them exist but not found in testing.)
You mentioned updating the development database. It would be entirely reasonable to dump the development database often with a refresh from live. You may want to make 3 environments. Development, staging, and production. The development database would contain fabricated test data. The staging database would have a copy of live (recent to within a few days maybe.) And of course live is live.
Excel works fine as a "bug database." Consider putting it in source control that you manipulate and commit. This will give you a good idea of what happened over time, and you can correct mistakes quicker.
As far as source/version control, I would recommend subversion. There are some GUI tools they might use, or even webDAV to access the SVN. This will allow users to edit files collaboratively and also give you details as to who edited what, when, and why... SVN will also do a pretty good job at merging files that happen to be saved at the same time.
It's not the easiest concept to wrap your head around, but its not very complicated once you get running.
I suggest having everyone read the first chapter from: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/
and they should have a good idea of what's happening.
I am also curious to see what people have to say about the database
How as a group should we manage the construction of the actual application? Are there methods out there that I can use that will allow any one of us to move the files to our development machine and keep track of who did it so we don't end up overwriting each other's changes?
It sounds like you're looking for build management. In the case of PHP, a true "build" is as simple as a collection of source files because the language is interpreted; there is no compilation.
It just so happens that I am one of the developers for BuildMaster, a tool which basically solves every problem you have listed in your question... and it also sounds like it would be free in your case under the Community Edition license. I'll try to address some of your individual pain points and how BuildMaster could be used as a solution.
Source Control
As suggested by others, you must use it. The trick when it comes to deployment is to set up some form of continuous integration so that every time someone checks in, a new "build" is created. In BuildMaster, you can set this up for any source control provider you want.
Issue/Bug Tracking
Excel will work, but it's not an optimal solution. There are plenty of free issue tracking tools you can use to manage your bugs and features. With BuildMaster, you can link your bugs and features list with the application by their release number so you could view them within the tool at any time. It can also modify issue statuses and add descriptions automatically if you want.
Deployments
Using BuildMaster, you can create automated deployment plans for your development environment, e.g.:
Get Latest Source Code
Create Artifact
Copy Files To Development Machine
Deploy Configuration Files
Update Database
The best part is, once you set these up for other environments (glowcoder's point #6), pushing all of your code and database updates is as simple as clicking a button.
Another issue I foresee will be updating the database running on the development machine. Are there any standardised methods that we can use to manage our SQL scripts among the four of us?
Database Updates
Not surprisingly, BuildMaster handles these as well by using the change scripts module. When a member of your team creates a script (e.g. ALTER TABLE ADD [Blah] INT NOT NULL) he can upload it into BuildMaster, then run it on any environment you have created.
The best part is that you can add a step in your automated deployment and never worry about it again. As Justin mentions, you can use .sql files for your object code (stored procedures, views, triggers, etc.) and have those executed on every build since they are essentially code anyway. You can keep those in source control.
Configuration Files
One aspect of all this you may have neglected (but will inevitably run into) is dealing with configuration files. With PHP, you may have an .htaccess file, a php.ini file, a prepend.php, or roll your own custom config file. Since by definition configuration files need to change between your personal machine and the development machine, grabbing them from source control wouldn't necessary work without some bit of hacking a la:
if (DEV) {
// do one thing
}
else if (PROD) {
// do another
}
With BuildMaster, you can templatize your configuration files and associate them with an environment so they can be deployed automatically. It will also maintain a history of changes for you.
Automated Testing
If you want the full ALM effect, you can automatically unit test your code during an automated build, and notify you if anything fails so you know as soon as possible that something is broken.
Apologies for the "long winded" response, but I feel like you're already ahead of the game by observing the problems you might run into in the future and really believe BuildMaster will make all of this deployment stuff simple for your team so you can focus on the fun part, coding!
We are just beginning the process of looking for a source code control system. I realize we are behind, but better late than never. None of the members on our team have experience with any systems in their past so I was hoping I could find out some basic things to look for as we begin investigating different tools. Here is a little background on our team:
Our group consists of developers and designers
We work primarily on PC's with one or two on Mac's
Many are not comfortable with command line based systems
The majority of our development is for the web
We develop in ASP.NET, ColdFusion, and PHP
A few we plan on looking into:
SourceGear Vault
Concurrent Versions System
Subversion
Microsoft Visual SourceSafe
PVCS
Rational ClearCase
Team Foundation Server
Git
Tourtoise SVN
Bazaar
Any experiences with any of these would be helpful to hear about.
Do not use Source Safe! It's not only bad for source control it's just bad for the world.
I use Subversion with Tortoise. I love it. Rather easy to get up and running. Branching/Merging can still be a nightmare though.
Visual SVN is good too.
If you havent had a single sourcecontrolsystem so far, I rather doubt you can see the improvements of GIT etc.
Start simple and with a lot of support: use Subversion as Server and Tortoise as Client.
Its a easy setup and easy to use.
Subversion is especially suitable for web development because of the 'differencing' algorithm it uses for binary files. Web development isn't just about code. Binary resources come into play a lot (images, PDFs, etc).
Subversion tracks the differences between files and records those. Contrast that with CVS, which essentially stores another copy of the binary file, and the benefit becomes apparent as your binary resources and check-ins increase.
I use the TortoiseSVN plug-in, which is decent enough for me. As you specifically tag asp .net, you might want to look into VisualSVN, which does a great job in mitigating the biggest problem in version control - a colleague forgetting to add a file to the repository.
I also used Visual Sourcesafe back in the day. Don't know if it's still the same now, but its exclusive checkout per user was a complete nightmare in a team of multiple devs. Constantly had to remind people to check stuff back in or, alternatively, convince a friendly admin to log me in under their credentials whenever someone was out of office.
You may want to take a look at Perforce.
http://www.perforce.com/perforce/products.html
You should go with subversion, or maybe git or mercurial.
It's clearly not worth it for you to buy anything, I think you can remove commercial solutions from your list right away.
Also, you should probably get some 3rd party hosting instead of running your own server.
I work at a client where they use TortoiseSVN as the client and installed VisualSVN (Subversion) as the server component. At one point we had this master plan to use nANT and CruiseControl to keep 3 different environments for a .NET website in sync, but we haven't gotten approval on that yet (shock). So until then, we use our Subversion server to hold all the source code and keep the different environments in sync manually. Its not the best scenario in the world but it gives everyone access to the code and our development group is small enough that its easy enough for everyone to know what is being worked on.
Subversion as a server, and tortoise svn as a client, could fit very well for your requirements, althought I hear that GIT is newer and has a lot of improvement.
I'd second using Tortoise SVN, avoiding SourceSafe and add another to the list:
Perforce - This what was used at one of my former workplaces. It wasn't bad though the merges were painful to do in that it took 1-2 developers a day to get the code merged to move from one environment to other,e.g. dev->test, test->staging.
Tortoise SVN has a lot of built-in windows explorer options that can be used instead of the command line so I rarely use the command line with Subversion.
If you do go with SourceSafe do beware that there is an admin tool to analyze the DB to see that should be run periodically and can be a little annoying as I don't think anyone is supposed to be using SS when the analyser is running. The branching in VSS is kind of weak, especially in contrast to seeing how well things work in SVN.
Another point is to consider if you have a bug-tracking system and want to have an integration between the two.
i personally use git with cygwin. i prefer it over svn because of the pain that svn has caused me in the past with merges. git was designed with making merges painless and it does a very effective job at adhering to that.
if cygwin isn't your cup of tea and you need to have windows explorer integration, please check out the ToroiseGit project. It has the look and feel of ToroiseSVN so it's easy to pickup. you can even run ToroitseGit and TortoiseSVN side by side if you desire.
also TortoiseGit has built in support for SVN repos so you can check out an svn repo and get all the benefits of local branches and what have you.
It true that VSS should not be considered - it is a dead product and just plain bad. However, Team Foundation Server - especially 2010 should be given a look. It not only does source code control but it has a work item tracking system, CI and build server and has some really great tools for testing. For example, it will run automated scripts and record the session in an mpeg movie so that you can actually see what the screen looked like when/if the test failed.
If that's more than what you want, go with SVN.
First advice: Don't use SourceSafe. It's a nightmare. I think even Microsoft developers don't use it internally!
You could go with SVN using TortoiseSVN as a front-end for the people not comfortable with the command line. But you will have to host your own Subversion server or to find an hosting provider for your repositories.
Also, there is SVN plugins for the most used IDE out there.
Another +1 to Subversion. Have used with a variety of languages, including ColdFusion. Tortoise is great for windows, the best graphical clients for Mac are not free, however.
Would also recommend against Rational Clearcase. Their client is kludgy and there aren't near as many plugins for different ide/platforms.
I'm currently working with Rational ClearCase and I cannot complain (at least, 'till now).
Before that we used ChangeMan Dimensions, that's a regular CVS tool with many resources but in my opinion, it makes source control become very burocratic, to say the least: it features the infamous exclusive checkout. I also don't like the design.
ClearCase has a Windows-Explorer look and once you get used to it, it becomes very simple to use. It also has a nice and easy integration with MS Visual Studio.
SourceGear Vault is a great tool. Its interface is similar to VSS, but it doesn't have all the problems.
If you use .net and visual studio or are in a heavily MS environment you may really like TFS. It has very good integration with Visual Studio. It also has lots of other functions like tracking tasks, bugs, etc. and automating builds. It is expensive, especially in the world of SCMs where you can get a lot for free (svn, git). Since you mentioned .net though it may be worth a look.
You need to make a decision as to whether you want to pay for it or have one for free. I know SVN and CVS are free and there are great UI clients and IDE plugins also available for free.
We started off with CVS and then transitioned to SVN a few years ago. The advantages we had were that a. SVN repo was smaller, b. It was accessible over the net through both http and https, c. Had great client UI tools (i use SmartSVN), there are also great plugins for eclipse and intelliJ. d. transitioning from using CVS to SVN was very easy as a user.
I've used QVCS by link text they have fair and much cheaper prices, for different versions.
I've used and tried subversion, and I personally do not like it, but if people like it and use, that's awesome for them.
I say you should find one that has the features you need, and price range that is reasonable, and has a good support system..
The hard part is getting everyone on your team to use it, and use it wisely...
Personally, I really like Subversion and the tortoiseSvn client as many have already noted. One site I found that I really like is http://www.springloops.com. They offer cheap SVN hosting, but they also integrate with BaseCamp which I love for managing projects. If you like Basecamp and also use Svn, its worth a look
Git with GitHub for Windows and/or TortoiseGit.
I am developing a website using CodeIgniter and PHP. Some of my friends suggest I start using Subversion to take care of my organization. Could someone give me a basic explanation of what SVN is without the jargon and also if it is practical for a framework where 5 files are needed to run a single page?
Subversion allows you to store your source in a central location, make changes from multiple places (ie. laptop, desktop), track changes and revert changes to your source tree if needed.
Have you ever made a big 'improvement' and then decided you were going in the wrong direction? With Subversion you can revert to the version of your source before you started heading off in the wrong direction.
Or how about this, you make some subtle changes to the codebase, but don't notice that you introduced a new bug until much later. You can use subversion to revert to previous code versions, helping you track down the change that introduced the bug.
It is more valuable when sharing the source with multiple developers, but even for my single developer projects I find it very handy to have all my source and changes in a Subversion repository.
If you combine it with Trac, you can then keep track of bugs/features, milestones, and use the Trac Wiki to document your project.
Every single project (even with only one developer) should be under source control, no matter what framework or language you are using.
Using simple words, Subversion will keep a history of your code files, should you like to revert them to a previous state or restore a copy in case of a disk crash (SVN must be on another computer in this case). It will also help you see easily the differences between two versions of a file.
For more information, just read TortoiseSVN user's guide, it has a pretty good overview of Subversion.
Here's some good info : Chapter 2. Basic Concepts
SVN is a version control system. It is used as a central repository for all of your code.
A significant strength of SVN is that it uses a Copy-Modify-Merge work flow model versus a Lock-Modify-Unlock model. The idea behind this is that each developer checks out or copies (copy) their own version of the code, works on it (modify), checks it back in and reconciles any changes (merge) that may conflict with other work another developer has done.
This is really handy as if you wanted to work on a piece of your code, you won't have to worry about the file being locked because someone else is working on it.
If anything, developers should use SVN to catalogue all revisions of their code and revert back if needed.
SVN is a version control system - which means that it stores various previous versions of a given file, and allows many people to work on the same file, and in the end put all the changes together. It also helps you go back to a previous version if necessary.
You should use that in your project if there are a lot of people working on the project. But even if you are the only one working, it will be easier to manage the project if it is on version control.
It's a way to keep control of versions. You could think of it as some kind of incremental backup. You send your code to the SVN server and it saves only the differences from the last version. This way, you can go back to an earlier version if you need it. It also allows you to work with more people and merge differences with ease. I say, you should use it. It's easy and useful.
Irrespective of what software you produce and even if you are on your own, SVN has to be used. I depend on it every day. Its the one software tool I could not live without. If you can install it off-site it gives you backup as well.
Simple things like being able to do a diff on the previous version of a file when you are making changes, can be a great help.
Use Toortoise under windows for the client side. It integrates into Windows and is just great to use.
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I have absolutely no idea about version control. Only that it can be very useful in many ways.
I have found a few related questions but none that start from the absolute beginning.
I am the only developer at my work using Mac OS X and traditionally just been using FTP.
Can anyone help me with version control in relation to PHP projects (does it matter)?
Yes, try it out, it's worth it. And the language you are using doesn't matter. It's working great with PHP for me and it will for you too.
Benefits
If you are the only developer, it is indeed easier to go without version control. However, you will find great benefits to using a version control system. Some of the easiest benefits will be:
Never wondering what is your latest version once you go back to a project (no more myproject090201-archive2-final6.zip)
Never fear to start off some major refactoring, if you make a mistake on your file, you'll just rollback to the latest version
If something stops working in your project and you have the feeling it worked at one point, you can test some of the prior versions easily and look at the difference between the working version and the non-working version to find what broke the code
Additional backup of your current project, and even better if it's not on your machine... of course, additional points for backing up your version control system, we're never too cautious, you don't want to have to restart that month-long project do you?
Choices
As some have said, you have a few choices for your version control system and I guess you'll want a free one to begin. There are a few excellent commercial products but the free ones have nothing to be ashamed of. So here are some very popular free version control systems:
Subversion (also called SVN)
Git
Mercurial
Bazaar
Centralized versus distributed
Subversion has been there for a while and it's one classified as 'centralized'. Meaning everyone will always go fetch the latest version and commit their latest work to one central system, often on another system although it can easily be on your own machine. It's a process easy to understand.
The three others are called 'distributed'. There's a lot of different possible processes as it's a more flexible system and that's why those three newcomers are getting a lot of traction these days in open source projects where a lot of people are interacting with one another. Basically you are working with your own revisions on your own machine, making as many copies as you need and deciding which versions you share with other people on other computers.
The trend definitely seems go towards distributed system but as those systems are more recent, they are still missing the GUI tools that makes it really user friendly to use and you might sometimes find the documentation to be a bit lighter. On the other hand, this all seems to be getting corrected quickly.
In your case, as you are working alone, it probably won't make a big difference, and although you'll hear very good points for centralized and distributed systems, you'll be able to work with one or the other without any problems.
Tools
If you absolutely need a GUI tool for your Mac, I'd then choose SVN to get initiated to source control. There are two very good products for that (commercial):
Versions
Cornerstone
And a few other ones (such as the free svnX) that are becoming a little bit old and unfriendly in my opinion but that might be interesting trying anyway.
If you don't mind not using the GUI tools, with the help of Terminal you'll be able to do all the same things with a few simple command lines with any of the aforementioned systems.
Starting points
In any cases, you'll want some starting points.
For Subversion, your first stop must be their free book, Version Control with Subversion. Take a few hours of your day to go through the chapters, it'll be time well invested. The introduction chapters are a good read even you don't want to use Subversion specifically because it'll get you to understand version control a little bit better.
For a distributed system, I've had fun with Mercurial but it's an easily flammable subject so I'll let you make your own choice there. But if you end up looking at Mercurial, have a look at this blog post, it was an excellent starter for me that'll get you up and running with the basics in a few minutes if you're already a bit accustomed to version control in general. Anyway, drop by Mercurial's homepage and have a look at the Getting Started section of the page.
Conclusion
Give it a go, invest a day trying it out with a few bogus files. Try out renaming files and directory, erasing, moving things around, committing binary files versus text files, resolving conflicts and reverting to older versions to get a hang of it. These are often the first few hurdles you'll encounter when playing with version control and it'll be painless if it's on a non-production project.
In any cases, it's something well-worth learning that'll be helpful with your solo projects as well as if you end up working with other developers at your current job or your next one.
Good luck!
The type of code is irrelevant.
One open-source and popular version control system is Subversion and there is a very good overview/manual here.
I use Git for PHP development.
It's fast, flexible, reliable, clean (CVS and SVN create a lot of hidden folders that I personally don't like).
Its distributed nature allow to work the way you want (with or without a central repository).
You can find more about it here:
Gitmagic
Speed Benchmarks
Moreover, you can get the Eclipse PDT (PHP Plugin) and use Subclibse in the IDE.
Versions is working well for another developer I work with. Additionally, if you are using Textmate the SVN bundle provides pretty much all you need for most parts of the Subversion workflow. I really like it.
The Project Plus plugin takes it a step further by adding small unobtrusive badges to versioned files in the project tree, showing at a glance the state of files in a project.
If you're on a Mac, do yourself a favor and pick up Versions, a beautifully designed (and highly functional) Subversion GUI. You'd do best to learn the terminology and get an idea of how Subversion works using a GUI before you jump to the command line. Once you're able to commit revisions of your code and run updates to get other people's work, then go back and read the red bean book (it really is the best way to learn Subversion in-and-out).
http://versionsapp.com/
use bazaar http://bazaar-vcs.org/
it's very nice and you can start using it in minutes.
Check out other options too - Miscrosoft's TFS (this not only used for source control system but for defect tracking, project management etc etc) , Bazaar, Git are popular ones.
Alex,
Version control (and some will scathe me for this statement) is not a trivial matter, and even very experienced developers get themselves into trouble. The most frequent causes for frustration are limitations of a particular product (Visual Source Safe is a famous one), and members of a team not following the same process, or not understanding the process at all.
This should not stop you from looking into using a source control tool - the opposite is the case. You can only use a tool effectively if you understand what it does and why.
I would recommend that you look into CVS. It has been around for many years, it is relatively simple to install, set up, and use, and while there are GUI clients available for most platforms, learning it from the command line may provide the best access to its features.