From: Tobias Jung newsgr@tobiasjung.net
If you don't want to or can't use Git/Subversion etc (although I agree that this is the best solution), why don't you just use an FTP client that is capable of syncing when you move the files to production?
You can tell the FTP client (e.g. YummyFTP, Transmit or as far as I know even the free Cyberduck) only to move the files that are newer than their counterparts on the server, or that have a different file size.
That way, you don't even have to keep track manually.
For a single feature or bugs that are worked on sequentially this would work well.
Unfortunately, I often have more than 1 issue on the go (average is probably 5, i.e. one is in alpha, another in beta, another one is on hold etc.) with the same code base. This method would still require me to keep track somehow of which files belong to which issue.
Also my project code bases are often large, in the thousands of files (we’re talking big legacy stuff). Doing any sort of comparison over the full project would take an extraordinary amount of time, I’d think. I’ve really only used Transmit and Cyberduck for a few clients who’s server only allows FTP so I’m not sure how quick these programs are with that sort of stuff - mostly I go command line FTP.
I much prefer scp. I have many scripts created that I use to upload with scp so I’d like to continue with them.
Thanks for the suggestion though. If I’ve missed on how I can work on multiple issues with FTP please let me know.
Ed