Being able to browse subversion repositories over the web is extremely handy if you want to take a peek at a file or two without checking out the entire repository. On the surface, though, this feature ignores one of the most important features of subversion, which is the ability to go back in time to work with previous revisions.

This handy little snippet, however, lets you browse any revision over the web. Simply insert “!svn/bc/<rev>/” after your repository root and before the file path.

For example, if the path to the current revision of your repository's trunk is:

http: //localhost/path/to/repo/ProjectX/trunk

You would use the following to browse the trunk of revision 1321:

http: //localhost/path/to/repo/ProjectX/!svn/bc/1321/trunk

(If you already know about Symfony and just want to use svn:externals to install it, you might want to skip here)

We've begun using the Symfony MVC framework for some small projects and really getting into it. If you're not familiar with MVC frameworks, then...well, you probably are more familiar than you know: the MVC patternis the design pattern at the heart of well-known development frameworks like Rails and Django. PHP has its own varieties of MVC frameworks, and Symfony ranks along with other popular options such as CakePHP and Code Igniter.

Like most MVC frameworks, a large part of what makes Symfony such a powerful tool is it's meticulously organized codebase. Placement of each piece of the stack is exquisitely thought-out, providing the foundation for an extensive plugin-architecture capable of interfacing with and incorporating numerous third-party libraries and tools. Like any intricate protocol, however, the organization of Symfony's code can be somewhat daunting and labyrinthine, contributing to its fairly steep learning curve.

Luckily there are some great tutorials and references out there, including the freely available version of the commercially published Symfony Book, the Getting Started Guide and a bunch more.