Why should I use version control if I'm working alone and already back up regularly?

Question

I\'m working on a project:

• Just me, no collaboration/source code sharing
• I\'m already backing my code up regularly, and I can use Dropbox to restore mista

Answer 1

Also check out Kiln and Fogbugz (which work in combination with Mercurial) They offer free accounts to students or teams of one or two people. http://www.fogcreek.com/

When you look at that, You might wonder why of all things I would recommend a distributed version control system to a single dev...

Well, overall I think its extemely useful, and Kiln and Fogbugz is super easy/fast to set up.

The key thing is, that merging of branches work way better in distributed version control systems like mercurial or github. So if you got a good part of your current project coded, and you have a really wild idea, you can branch it, and when the idea actually works, merging it back works really well. And because the merging works, until you find your wild idea works, you can still add other features and fixes to the trunk in the meantime.

Kiln's commenting / review functions that are syncronized with your versions make sense for a single person also, I think. I know I have to remind myself of needed improvements to some part, or to review something, or I'll forget.

This package is really well integrated and worth trying, they have good and short blurbs on the concepts on their site.

If you think its overkill, maybe so, but I think the extra horsepower in this setup will not get in your way.