This may come as a surprise but it's not that often that I have a need to compare entire folders or projects of code. Most of the time I'm using Subclipse's compare functionality to compare two different versions of the same file. When I do need to perform heavy code comparisons I typically rely on File Merge, a utility that comes with Xcode.

Realizing there are probably much better tools suited to this task I thought I'd reach out to my readers and ask what you use. So, if you're on OS X, fire away and offer up your best suggestion for the most rockin' code compare utility.

Incidentally, for those that are on Windows (I'm sorry), Beyond Compare and WinMerge are the best tools I've seen.

Throughout the parts of this text I've used TortoiseSVN to perform all repository actions. This was mainly due to the simplicity and ease of use TortoiseSVN affords. TortoiseSVN is also handy when versioning assets that aren't code-related like spreadsheets and general documents. When working with code - ColdFusion for instance - there are other Subversion clients that work just as good as TortoiseSVN and don't require you to leave your development environment to request repository updates or commit changes. One such tool is Subclipse which is built on the open-source Eclipse platform. Eclipse is an extremely popular Java-based programming tool that works with just about every modern programming language. I use Eclipse and Eclipse plugins like CFEclipse on a daily basis to manage my code. In the this section, I discuss installing, configuring, and using Subclipse, the Subversion plugin for Eclipse.

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During the past two weeks I have worked on a new paper outlining the process of installing and configuring a development environment with Apache, Subversion, TortoiseSVN, and Subclipse. Over the next day or two I will be posting the individual parts of the paper as a blog series. For those that prefer to read offline, the entire text (60 pages and 91 screenshots) is available as a PDF download (see below). This blog post kicks off the 5 part series with the Introduction.

Click here to download Configuring a Development Environment with Apache, Subversion, TortoiseSVN, and Subclipse or click the "more" link to begin with the introduction.

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