Yesterday evening there was a post on the CFEclipse mailing list. Someone was curious about how they could back up their CFEclipse projects and I responded “by using Subversion”.
They replied:
It just seems like complicated overkill for a single developer
I see this all the time and it’s frustrating because of all the tools I use Subversion is THE one I wish I had started using years ago. Yes it was confusing at first… What is an update? Commit? WHERE is my code? What is a ‘repository’? But now I couldn’t live without it.
Everything I do related to a project goes into Subversion:
- Code
- Ant build scripts
- SQL scripts
- ALL project documentation
Installing and getting started with Subversion is fairly easy. There is a Subversion book online, for free. There is a ‘one-click’ installer (for Windows) available. There are several great client utilities. Two of my favorite are Subclipse (great w/CFEclipse) and TortoiseSVN.
I recommend everyone download and check out the help file included with TortoiseSVN. It is IMO one of the best guides written for Subversion. In particular the “Basic Concepts” and “Daily Use Guide” sections are a great introduction to version control.
While I’m pushing Subversion here, if that doesn’t work for you, there are lots of other version control solutions. Just use one. It doesn’t matter if you are a solo developer or on a team. Version control will help make you a better developer.
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4 Comments
Hey man,
I completely agree. I got a really nasty review for a conference preso once when I said something like “With Subversion being free, there’s simply no excuse for not using a version control system!”
Apparently it was something like an “obnoxiously pompous” statement…
I couldn’t agree more. My company started with CVs before switching to subversion. In a team environment the reason is obvious, but now in a single developer situation it has saved me time and time again.
Whether I accidentally download over my source or my girls hope on my laptop when Eclipse is up and they start making edits because they want to type like Dad. I know I will be able to click on the file and go back to a previous version with comments to even tell the changes I did that warranted a save to SVN. I could imagine life without it now.
Not free but I find this SVN book great, “Subversion Version Control…” by William Nagel. amazon link to book - http://tinyurl.com/3djdve
Nagel’s book is free as PDF:
http://www.informit.com/store/.....0131855182
(look about halfway down the page)
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