Why use Version (Source) Control Systems

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Why version control?

Scenario 1:
Your program is working
You change “just one thing”
Your program breaks
You change it back
Your program is still broken--why?

Scenario 2:
Your program worked well enough yesterday
 You made a lot of improvements last night.
...but you haven't gotten them to work yet
 You need to turn in your program now
 Has this ever happened to you?

Version control for teams

Scenario 1:
You change one part of a program--it works
Your co-worker changes another part--it works br> You put them together--it doesn’t work
Some change in one part must have broken something in the other part
What were all the changes?

Version control systems

A version control system (often called a source code control system) does these things:
Keeps multiple (older and newer) versions of everything (not just source code)
Requests comments regarding every change
Allows “check in” and “check out” of files so you know which
files someone else is working on Displays differences between versions