[TriLUG] OT: methodologies for publishing repository -> website

[Mark Kempster]

I'm hosting a pretty straightforward html / image site for a
friend of mine. I've got him set up with a subversion client
(RapidSVN) so he can make local edits & commit them back to
the repository.

Can anybody recommend best-practices for publishing the site
from the repository to the public site?

The web server setup:
  (1) debian testing / unstable
  (2) apache2
  (3) subversion repository (hosted on this machine)


I'm imagining the publish will be something simple like
a checkout or export:

  cd site_root
  svn co http://svn/trunk/site site_root

  - or -

  cd site_root/..
  mv site_root site_root.bak
  svn export http://svn/trunk/site site_root
  rm -rf site_root.bak


Is there any downside to having a checked-out working copy as
the published website (assuming access to the .svn directories
is prohibited)? I figure if it's a working copy, site updates
will be faster than a complete rebuild.

Is it better to export (instead of checkout) the tree?

For a low-volume site (both in hits & code changes) is it better to
use cron or a commit trigger to start the site update?

Assuming site structure & mime types are correct, is there anything
inherently evil about skipping the whole publish thing and just using
apache's rewrite (or something similar) to browse through the subversion
repository itself?

Anything else to consider?

As always - Thanks.
- Mark