We talked about Development Environments and Version Control at our Dec 18, 2014 meetup. We talked about ServerPress, Git, and developing locally. Below are the notes.
DesktopServer
Gregg Franklin gave a demo of DesktopServer, a local server package which runs on Mac and Windows. He showed how to create and manage local development sites. He also showed how to deploy local sites to servers. Here’s a video of Gregg’s demo:
Git and developing locally
Brian Richards spoke about Git and developing locally. Here’s his presentation. Below it are notes from the talk.
Advice
- You should develop locally so you can test locally, not on live site.
- You should use Git even if you work solo, because of version control.
- Commit messages should be short but descriptive.
- Commits should be atomic: change one thing at a time.
- Git stores only the changes that have been made; SVN duplicates files.
- Brian doesn’t use WordPress as submodule; has run into issues. Checks in root and everything inside it, except wp-uploads.
- Brian doesn’t store database in Git.
- Always check out changes before you make your commit.
Resources
- Git: version control system
- Dploy.io: deploy from GitHub, Bitbucket or your own repositories to one or many servers in one click
- SourceTree: Git GUI
- Github: Git host
- Beanstalk: Git host
- Bitbucket: Git host
- gitignore.io: Create useful .gitignore files for your project
- WP Migrate DB Pro: Copy your database from one WordPress install to another with one click in your dashboard
- Dictator: a package built on top of wp-cli that allows you to export configuration files straight from the command line
- Git troubleshooting flowchart
- Sequel Pro: a fast, easy-to-use Mac database management application for working with MySQL databases.
- WP-CLI: a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations
Announcements
- WordSesh: 24 hours of WordPress talks. Live on Dec 20, 2014, and recorded for later viewing. Brian Richards and WPSessions are participating.
- Topher DeRosia made an exciting announcement about something WordPress-related. Follow or contact him for details.
- Duane Weed is looking to feature more videos about Michigan on DW Video. Contact him for details.
Great video from ServerPress! Is there a copy available of the presentation Brian did as well?
Unfortunately, no. If Brian provides one in the future, I’ll post it.
Brian published his presentation slides, and I embedded them into the post.