automatic update on commit

[joshkutz]

Hi.
This is a question about using CVS to manage a PHP codebase among 
multiple developers.

My idea is this: 
1) Use one module in the CVS repository
2) Have a permanent checked-out copy of this module on the server in 
a directory that falls within Apache's document root
3) Let everyone checkout their own copy of the source.
4) Let any authorized user commit to the repository.
5) When a commit happens, after the commit finishes, it calls an 
update on the copy within Apache's document root.  The newly 
committed change appears within Apache's copy of the source and can 
be viewed in a Web Browser.

It is my thinking that this approach grants most of CVS's benefits 
without making it too cumbersome to actually program and test your 
work in the proper web server environment.

Please note that this is a development server; I would not want such 
a blindly automatic system on production.

Anyway, after a lot of reading, I found one way to do this:
   modify the $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/loginfo file  
this gives the option of doing something when commit is done.
the one problem I ran into is CVS will lock forever because the 
automatic update starts before the instigating commit has a chance to 
finish.  This is bad.
I got around this by making my forced update operate as a background 
process.  This works, but seems like such a cheap kludge.  Is there 
anyother solution?  Should I rethink my entire plan outlined above?  

-Josh