Tracking Schema Changes
One challenge of team programming on web applications is dealing with database schema changes. Approaches vary, but they seem to be either keep a running log of changes or use a tool to create a diff. I prefer the former, having a running log of changes that developers can append and apply as necessary.
We’ve been using this kludgy system that I hacked into Otter some years back where you edit the log, append some lines, run a script, cvs commit, then run another script. Getting developers to follow the rules and actually get the changes tracked proved to be a nightmare.
Today I put the finishing touches on a tool that basically does all that in one pop. It’s nothing complicated, just a interactive console tool that wraps cvs and mysql, but it works and it was a joy to write.
It makes me wonder how other people handle this problem?
