Getting started with Version Control

Question

I need to implement version control, even for just the developing I do at home. I have read about how great Subversion is for the past couple years and was about to dedicat

Answer 1

If you are new to versioncontrol read this:
Source Control HOWTO

Answer 2

Use TortoiseSVN (version.app if on mac). Just install and go. If you need a place to host your code look at http://beanstalkapp.com/

Answer 3

Just use TortoiseSVN, and you can live even without knowing actual Subversion commands... But that's bad. Luckily there will always be a “great opportunity” to learn them by heart — when your priceless repository first gets corrupted.

Yes, it happens.

Answer 4

From personal experience, svn would be my recommendation. You can even use a service like Beanstalk that offers free accounts (with limits obviously, but sufficient for any smallish project) to test the waters. But as others have said, git is superior and is likely worth looking into.

Answer 5

Yup, SVN for preference unless you really need git's particular features. SVN is hard enough; It sounds like git is more complicated to live with. You can get hosted svn from people like Beanstalk - unless you have in-house Linux people, I'd really recommend it. Things can go wrong horribly easily and it's nice to have someone else whose job it is to fix it.

There's an excellent tutorial on revision control from Eric Sink which is worth reading no matter which system you use.

Answer 6

@superjoe30

What about using source control on your own computer, if you're the sole programmer? Is this good practice? Are there related tips or tricks?

I find git is actually easier for this as you don't need a server or worry about entering URL's and so on. Your version-control stuff just lives in the .git directory inside your project and you just go ahead and use it.

5 second intro (assuming you have installed it)

cd myproject
git init
git add * # add all the files
git commit

Next time you do some changes

git add newfile1 newfile2 # if you've made any new files since last time
git commit -a

As long as you're doing that, git has your back. If you mess up, your code is safe in the nice git repository. It's awesome

• Note: You may find getting things OUT of git a bit harder than getting them in, but it's far more preferable to have that problem than to not have the files at all!