[Anthill] Building from Subversion - checkout vs. update

[Andy Levy]

On 12/6/05, Jim Hague <jim.hague at acm.org> wrote:
> On Tuesday 6 December 2005 20:50, Andy Levy wrote:
> > Is it possible to have anthill check for a working copy of my project
> > in the working directory, and if one exists, only perform an svn
> > update as opposed to a full checkout?
>
> Not with Anthill OS (I've never use Pro). Adding such an option I guess would
> be fiddly, as you'd have to add an 'update' function to every revision system
> backend.
>
> FWIW, texts on continuous integration often stress the importance of a clean
> checkout on each build, so you can be absolutely 100% sure you're not
> accidentally dependent on previous build artifacts.

OK, that concept makes sense.

I'm wondering if I'm trying to pound nails with a screwdriver here. 
I'm not moving towards a continuous integration/build environment; had
no plans to, as I'm in up to my neck just getting version control set
up and getting my head around Tomcat, Ant, and JSP apps in general and
know very little about CI (maybe a trip to Barnes & Noble is in
order).  Someone on the Subversion list had a suggestion for me on
something that involved CuriuseControl.NET, so the theme has been
recurring.  I'm really looking for a release management tool (if I
have to cobble one together with some scripts, so be it) where I can
hand a release manager a request saying "please pull revision X from
subversion repository Y and deploy the application on the server" with
minimal knowledge of *how* it all works on his part.  Anthill, if I
disable the schedule, gets me most of the way there I think.  But is
it the right way for me to be doing this?

I looked at Maven briefly as well, but the documentation was a little
tough to follow.  I may get back to it later in the week.