Maintaining Multiple Versions of App

Rails
1

I’m working on a major Rails project who’s code base continues to grow.
The
client wants to have two different versions of the software, with some
features in common between the two, and some features diverging. I’m
trying
to figure out the best strategy for easily maintaining the features the
two
have in common, while allowing for differences as well.

Ideas:

  • Subversion “branches”, doing diffs and merging to maintain
    commonality
    between both. (Seems like a nightmare.)

  • One codebase, w/ configuration settings and if/else statements
    depending
    on which version is running. (Also seems like a nightmare.) For example,
    the
    following type statements littered throughout the code:

    if version == “A”

    do version “A” logic

    elsif version == “B”

    do version “B” logic

    end

  • Rails plugins and modules. Seems like the best way, but I’m not sure
    the
    best way to structure it. Differences will be mostly minor, but at all
    levels (views, controllers, models emails)

Any feedback or shared experiences would be great.

Thanks,

–
Scott B.
Electro Interactive, Inc.
Blog: http://synthesis.sbecker.net

2

SVN branches is one way…

another way is to use SVN Externals to manage the common code between
many
apps.

Another option is to move common models, etc into plugins which can be
shared.

3

Another option is Engines: http://rails-engines.org/