[wp-hackers] Template revisioning system for WordPress

[Beau Lebens]

> Yes that is some good point we have raised. Still I am not sure why
> you suggest to version the entire theme, without just the file which
> is edited.
>
> Now when we normally do websites, we just keep versions of each and
> every file, one by one. So why cant we use that logic here too?

If you use Subversion, then you're technically keeping revisions of
the entire site (every time 1 file changes, the global revision number
increases).

I personally think this makes sense in relation to a theme because the
theme files all contribute to a single, working (hopefully) theme.
This means that you'd want to know that *all* files were at some known
revision because that's when you knew it was all working.

For example:

I have a theme which includes a series of PHP files, some CSS, a file
full of JavaScript and some images. Let's say I add a new feature, and
that requires me to modify 1 of my PHP files, add some CSS to my
style.css, plus modify my JavaScript file to include some new
functionality.

If each of those files maintains their own revision counts, then I
need to know that *right now*, it all works. Let's say the revision
numbers are PHP = 324, CSS = 12, JS = 3.

Now I make some PHP tweaks, doing multiple revisions. PHP file
revision is now 332.

And some CSS tweaks. CSS revision is now 34

Now I want to roll back to before I made that big change, because it
turns out it was a bad idea. Which revisions were they again? Did I
keep track of that? How easy is it to figure out the revision of each
file involved (or even to make sure I've reverted each file involved)
to full revert that change?

If you've used decent commit messages (if you even have them, since
the current Post Revisions system doesn't), then maybe this is a bit
easier, but hopefully you see my point.

Beau