I am relatively new to Subversion — well, two years into using it now, but this is the first project I have used it on. Subversion, like any tool, has its quirks and works best when you really know how to use it. When I started, I treated the "trunk/branches/tags" directory structure exactly like a directory structure. It took me a little playing around until I stumbled on what I would call a best practice. When I checkout a new project, I do it like so:
svn co http://domain.com/svnroot/project/trunk project
That way, when I go to the project directory, I do not have to then go into the trunk directory to get to my files.
Subversion Branching “Good” Practice