This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Jared Richardson. Original Post: How do you track your source code? Feed Title: Jared's Weblog Feed URL: http://www.jaredrichardson.net/blog/index.rss Feed Description: Jared's weblog. The web site was created after the launch of the book "Ship It!" and discusses issues from Continuous Integration to web hosting providers. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Jared Richardson Latest Posts From Jared's Weblog

I've had a few people ask me why we included something as basic as source code control in our book. Doesn't everybody use CVS or Subversion they ask. Actually, no, a lot of teams don't use anything.

This conversation was posted on the web...(Google finds ~everything~!)... the guys involved were discussing what their manager wants them to use for source code management.

Apparently they sent the source code out in email... that way if the disk crashes, you can just poll your email from another machine. Here's the link:

http://tunes.org/~nef/logs/haskell/05.02.13

...
20:30:05  The most useful part is the extremely clear explanations of what can happen if you don't do the things it recommends.
20:30:41  "if your hard drive died right this instant, how much work would you lose? if it's more than a day of work, you need to use your SCM better."
20:31:10  SCM?
20:31:16  source code management
...
20:32:07  Anyway, I've been fighting to put everything we change into darcs so that we can instantly rebuild our projects, but I've gotten some opposition.
20:32:12  Ha! Mailinglist is a good idea.
20:32:40  on what grounds?
20:32:45  You send all your code to the mailing list.  If your disk crashes you can retrieve your code back from the mailing list.
20:32:54  shapr: What do you use at the moment?
20:33:00  Opposition on the grounds that it's an extra step that just wastes time.
20:33:03  (If anything.)
20:33:09  This is also a reason why when people ask "what is a good editor" I reply "outlook express".

First, you keep no history of your changes. A good source code management system (see this page for a list of products) will track the history of a file. Who changed this file? When? Why?

Second, your changes and Mike's changes don't get merged in together automatically. Your changes just overwrite Mikes. :) Sorry Mike! A real versioning system will either lock the file so you and Mike can't edit the file at the same time or it will merge in the changes.

Third, security... are you sending out the source code for your company through email? By the way, how much source do you have? Can you send it all or does that take too long?

Given that products like CVS and Subversion are free and they integrate almost every editor on the planet, there really isn't a good reason to not use source code management software! Keep fighting the good fight guys!

So what can these guys do? I'd suggest trying to show the benefits of source code control.

1. Install Subversion (or CVS) on an existing machine. Preferably not your desktop, but if that's the only choice, use a desktop.
2. Start using it yourself everyday. Get used to the tool and learn to use it. Show that it's not going to slow you down.
3. Show it to your coworkers. Show them how it is tracking your changes, how it can handle collisions, etc.
4. Finally, show it to the boss. Have a week's worth of changes to the code so they can see the merges. Show them how you can pull out last Tuesday's work on demand

It's possible that the boss still won't get on board... if so, I'd run a CVS or Subversion box in the corner and not tell anyone (assuming there is not direct order to NOT do it). :) It's not a radical departure that will hurt anything. Many an obsinate boss will allow something just because the developers want it. Don't underestimate your ability to introduce change.