Why should I use version control?

Question

I was reading a blog where the writer said this

"Code doesn’t exist unless it’s checked into a version control system. Use version control for everything you do. Any version control, SVN, Git, even CVS, master it and use it."

I have never used any sort of version control and I do not find it that great. I have googled it and looked at it before, but I just need it put into children's terms if you will please.

As I understand it right now, things like SVN are for storing your code online for a group of users or other developers to have access to the same code. Once you update some code, you can submit the new version and the SVN will keep copies of old code as well as the new ones you update.

Is this the basic idea of it or am I getting it completely wrong?

If I am right, then it might not be much use if I:

• Do not have other people working on the code.
• Do not plan on letting others have the code.

Answer 1

You'll probably want something like subversion even if you're working by yourself so that you have a history of all your changes. You might want to see what a piece of code looked like once upon a time to remember why you made a change.

Having source control is also useful when you check in often. If you check in often, you'll always be in a state to roll back often too. Many times you could start going down one path to solve a problem and then realise it was the wrong path to go. Many times you could just keep barking down the wrong path and end up building a terrible solution - only because you didn't want to lose all your work. By checking in often, the last point of "happiness" is not far away so even if you go down the wrong path you can always roll back and try again and make a more elegant and simple solution. Which is always a good thing so you can understand and maintain what you wrote in the future.

Answer 2

Version control is a rare tool that I would say is absolutely required, even if you are only using it as a solo developer. Some people say that it's a tool that you live and die by, I agree with that assertion.

You probably use version control right now, even if you don't know it. Do you have any folders that say "XXX Php Code (December)" or "XXX.php.bak.2"? These are forms of version control already. A good version control system will take care of this for you automatically. You will be able to roll back to any point in time (that you have data checked in) and be able to see an exact copy of that data.

Furthermore, if you adopt a system like subversion, and use a remote repository (such as one on a server you own), you will have a place to keep all of your code. Need a copy of your code somewhere else? No problem, just check it out. Hard drive crash at home? Not an issue (at least with your source code).

Even if you don't use version control now, you will likely use it at one point in time later in your career and you could benefit from becoming more comfortable with the principles now.

Answer 3

Version control is almost impossible to live without after you start using it. It is indispensible if more than one developers are working on the same code base...but it also quite useful for a single developer.

It tracks the changes in your code and allows you to roll back to previous versions. It frees you to experiment with the knowledge that if anything breaks you can undo your changes.

Answer 4

You gain security (in the sense of having a back-up of your code) and versioning of your code (assuming you get into a habit of committing your changes often). Both are very good things even if nobody else ends up ever working on the code with you...

Answer 5

It depends on the size of the project and how often you change your mind about parts of it. For small projects where you're just getting something done in a linear fashion, version control is probably not going to be of much help (though if you accidentally delete or corrupt a file without version control, you'll be crying).

But a couple of weeks ago I met a friend who was writing an enormous hobby project on his own. He had ten or twenty copies of his code, with suffixes like "X1", "X2", "test", "faster" and so forth.

If you've made more than two copies of your code, you need version control. A good version control system lets you undo a change you made a while ago without undoing the stuff you did after making that change. It lets you see when certain changes were made. It lets you split your code into two "paths" (e.g. one for testing out a new idea, the other to keep your "tried and trusted" code safe until you've finished testing) and then merge them back together.

Answer 6

You may find that you had a working version of your program.

You decide to add a few new features over a period of time and you release that.

You start getting bug reports affecting some code that you thought you didn't touch.

By using SVN, for example, you can move back to an older version, and check to see if the new bug exists. Once you find a version that introduced the bug it will be easier to fix it as you can compare the version that worked to what didn't work and see what changed, then it will narrow down the search.

Source control has many uses, even if you are the only developer.