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How to Choose the Best Version Control Software

You'll need to consider your development process, the amount and types of files your team works with, and high-level organizational goals. When choosing a VCS tool, there are a few things to keep in mind.

SummaryWhat is version control software Benefits of version control software How to choose the best version control softwareTeam collaboration Easy to use Full history TraceabilitySecurity Summary

What is version-control software

In a specific type of database, version control software keeps track of every change made to the code. If a mistake is made, developers can go back in time and compare older versions of code to help fix the problem with minimal disruption to the rest of the team.

Software engineers working in groups are constantly developing new code and updating current code. The code of a project, application or software component is usually structured in a folder structure. The development team may be working on different code to fix an unrelated issue; each developer's changes can be done in stages.

You may have commented out blocks of code because you want to disable a feature without deleting the code. After all, you are afraid that it will be useful to you later. Version control is a solution to these problems.

Benefits of version-control software

For high-performance software and DevOps teams, using version control software is a best practice. Version control also helps developers work faster and allows software teams to maintain efficiency and agility as the team grows.

While it is possible to build software without using version control, it exposes the project to a significant risk that no competent team should take. So the question is not whether you should use version control, but which version control system you should use.

When you choose your desktop software you always see the requirements. Similarly, before deciding on your version control, you should consider the needs of your development team.

This article will highlight a few key points to consider when choosing the best version control software.

How to choose the best version-control software

Team collaboration

Version control is based on collaboration. When selecting a version control system, the ability to enable team communication should be a top priority.

Easy to use

It's a no-brainer to have team members working simultaneously, but even those working alone can benefit from the flexibility of working on separate update streams. Using VCS tools to create a "branch" maintains different workflows differently while allowing developers to merge them back together, allowing them to verify that changes on each branch are not in conflict.

Many software development teams use branching best practices for every feature, every release, or both. When deciding how to use branching and merging functionality in VCS, teams can choose from several alternative processes.

History complete

Each file has a complete long-term change history. This refers to all the changes made over time by many people. The ability of different VCS programs to handle renaming and moving files varies.

The author, date, and written comments about the reason for each change should all be included in this history.

Having a full history allows you to roll back to previous versions to aid in investigating the root causes of bugs, which is essential when working on older software releases.

Almost anything can be considered an "earlier version" of the program if actively developed.

Traceability

Being able to log every change made to the program and connect it to project management and bug tracking tools such as Jira and annotating each change with a note indicating the purpose and intent of the change can help not only root cause analysis and other forensic analysis.

When reading the code and trying to understand what it does and why it is created the way it is, having the annotated code history at your fingertips can help developers make appropriate and harmonic changes according to the system. of the long-term planned system design.

This is especially important when working with old code and is necessary for developers to work efficiently.

Security

Some version control systems have more built-in security measures than others. The dispute over distributed and centralized version control systems is a typical example of this problem. We will see this in more detail later.

Some teams want access control down to the file level rather than just the repository or zone. Depending on the version control system, the degree of granularity with which you can regulate these aspects varies.

Summary

Git is a kind of version control that many companies use. Git is a distributed, free, and open-source version control system, unlike Subversion. Git was designed with speed, simplicity, and a fully distributed approach in mind when it was created. It's really easy to learn Git from open source, stack overflow or different informative blogs.

Many of SVN's benefits come from its centralized nature, and the same can be said of Git and its distributed capabilities. Git is perfect for remote teams with an agile mindset. Because developers have access to all history with Git commands from their neighborhood, the workflow will be faster through the repository.

While it is possible to build software without using version control, it exposes the project to a significant risk that no competent team should take. So the question is not whether you should use version control, but which version control system you should use. And I hope this article helps you decide on the next version control for your team.