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Filed under: Developer, Windows, Commercial, Freeware, Open Source

Dev Chair : Version control for beginners


Put up your hand if you do not consider yourself a software developer but know what 'version control', 'CVS', or 'Subversion' is.

Good, you guys can stop reading now and come back for the next post.

The rest of you may want to stick around and find out why version control software may be something you need but do not know it exists.

Why would you need Version Control?
You may think that version control software is only for 'proper' or hardcore developers. But let's say you host your own blog on a web host. There are many files to maintain for the blog system, let alone the configuration files, the style/template files, the plug-in files, etc. Wouldn't it nice if you can take a snapshot of the whole system every time your blog is in a semi-satisfying state? Or may be you are a Linux user, you probably have a bunch of shell scripts that you use and tinker with everyday. Wouldn't be cool if you can go back to the copy of a script you have last Tuesday at 1:09 AM before you decided (erroneously) that half of the script was junk? How about you are a writer and want to take a snapshot of your novel? Sure you can save multiple copies of your file but if you have spent some time renaming files on your hard disk and append "1", "2", or "old" to the file name, then you are prime candidate for a version control system.

If you're still reading, hopefully I have convinced you the virtue of storing critical and often changed files on a version control system.

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