Similar to most people's first experience with source control... I didn't get it. After all, passing folder locations back and forth between group members seemed to work just fine. The cumbersome CVS command line tools didn't ease the introduction at all. It took two more years before I truly utilized the tool effectively.
Since then I have used several different flavors of source control professionally: CVS, Microsoft's Source Safe, and have landed on Subversion. I'm so accustomed to developing with Subversion that I can no longer imagine developing without it. I have a personal linux box with subversion installed. Every single project I work on has a repository on my linux box; especially if the project is for someone else. There is a sick satisfaction after checking in changes to some hobby project and knowing all the code is safe and sound, intrinsically backed up along with all its history.
Recently, however, i've been challenged to explain the benefits of source control to people I would have expected to know better. For instance I helped out with a website recently and was challenged when I told another developer I needed to check-in changes and create a tag before moving the updated html files to the live server. "Why would you go throw the trouble of setting up a repo for site containing a few pages?"
I think the only response is: If you are asking that question, you don't understand version control. Or software... or projects... or possibly life.
Here is a list of some of my Source Control Irritations:
- Checking in commented out code
- Not adding a check in comment
- Using useless check in comments like "fixed bug" or my favorite "checking in code"
- Checking in a lot of code one file at a time (this really bloats the history log in svn)
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