Version Control System: As technology advances and the internet plays a bigger role in our lives, developers have to do more complex work. That’s where the developers at the multinational company are up against some serious challenges.
The challenges include getting employees to work together effectively, storing all the different versions of files created, and ensuring data is backed up properly. The company won’t be successful if these challenges can’t be resolved.
To overcome such problems, we can use the Version Control System. In this tutorial, we will learn about Version Control Systems (VCS) and the benefits they offer.
| Post On: | What is Version Control System? |
| Post Type: | GIT Tutorial |
| Published On: | www.softwaretestingo.com |
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The Version Control System is a great way for multinational companies to collaborate with their employees and have backups on the remote repository. The system makes it possible for developers to roll back to the previous commits and the source code’s last version if needed, which is really helpful!
Real-Time Examples To Understand Why We Need a Version Control System?
- A large team is working on various research tasks, with some members focusing on individual modules and others working on shared modules. Collaboration may be difficult at times, but imagine how much progress can be made with so many people working together!
- Just imagine what would happen if your system crashed on the submission day. You could lose all your hard work. But if you have saved your work at a different system or cloud location, you can easily get the corrupted documents back.
- Your manager has given you a research task. After completing the task, you submit the first version of the document for review, and your manager has a lot of comments. If you’re getting a lot of feedback from your manager on a research task, don’t worry – it’s normal for there to be some back-and-forth before the final version is complete.
As per the comments by your manager, you need to remove the existing content and add new content. You have worked on the comments and submitted the second version of the same document but are asked to incorporate some previously removed content.
If you have saved the first version of the document, then it’s easy to include those lines again. Otherwise, you may need to start from scratch.
If any such real-time scenario comes into your life, you wonder how to overcome this problem. In all the above scenarios, if you notice you require something that can:
- Keep track/version of progress.
- Provide a shared space to allow people to collaborate
- Recover if something wrong happened
What Is a Git Version Control System?
The Version Control System is also popularly called VCS in short. Version Control is a system that records changes made to files. This system refers to the software tools category that allows the software team to look after the source code changes whenever needed. The system records all the changes made to a file, so a specific version may be rolled if required in the future.
Also, the Git version control system is responsible for keeping all team members up to date on the latest versions of files. This allows everyone on the team to work simultaneously on the same project while avoiding conflicts.
The Version Control System is also popular with some other names like:
- VCS
- Revision Control System
- Configuration Management System
- Source Control Management System
Now try to Understand by taking a real-time example so that it will give an idea about how this version control system git works in the real world.
Suppose in your team 3, developers are working, and all are sitting in a different location of the globe, but all are sharing one repository, which is acting as a server. All developers use that repository to commit or update their assigned tasks after unit Testing is complete.
If you are working in a multinational company, there are many workstations that have a single server repository. All workstations will have their own working copy, and all source codes will be saved into a particular server repository.
This means that any developer can easily access the task being done using the repository. If any specific developer’s system breaks down, then their work won’t stop, as there will be a copy of the source code in the central repository.
Benefits of the version control system:
Using a Version Control System is a good idea if you’re developing software. It’s helpful and can make your work easier and safer. Below, we are trying to mention some of the benefits of a Version Control System:
- Managing and Protecting the Source Code: The Version Control System helps manage the software team’s source code by tracking all code modifications and protecting the source code from human error and consequences.
- Keeping Track of All the Modifications Made to the Code: The team working on the project produces new source codes and makes amendments to the existing code. These changes are recorded for future reference and can be used if ever needed in the future to discover the root cause of any particular problem.
- Comparing Earlier Versions of the Code: All versions of code are saved in the Version Control System (VCS/ Revision Control System / Configuration Management System / Source Control Management System)This makes it possible for developers to go back at any time and compare the earlier versions of the code to help fix mistakes while reducing disruption to all team members.
- Supports the Developers’ Workflow and Not Any Rigid Way of Working: There is no right or wrong way to use Version Control software; it simply provides an easy and efficient way to track code changes so developers don’t get frustrated with a more difficult system.
- When working in teams, using a version control system can be helpful. This way, multiple people can work on the same codebase at the same time without accidentally overwriting or conflicting with each other’s work.
- If you ever introduce a bug or break something, don’t worry! Version control systems mean you can quickly revert the software to the last known good state.
- VCS is a great way to keep track of every change made across all files so that it’s easy to identify which change caused any bugs. This makes it much easier for developers to identify and fix problems.
Let us try to understand the above things by relating to some real-time scenarios so that it will be helpful to understand why we need VCS software.
- If you store your code repository in a system, you may lose all codes if that system crashes. Version Control Systems (VCS) can help by backing up central or distributed system code.
- If you’re working on a project with multiple developers, it’s important to coordinate your efforts so that everyone is working on different parts of the code. This way, when it comes time to merge all the code together, there won’t be any conflicts.
- If you and other developers are working on the same code repository, how will code from all developers be merged and shared across all developers? One developer finishing coding first and then sharing the updated code base with another developer would not work well.
Most Used Version Control Systems Software Examples List
We have compiled a list of the most used version control systems or software available to make it easier for you to choose.
Conclusion:
Version Control Software is an essential tool for modern teams, whether they are working remotely or in the same office. Those who are used to working with a good VCS know how much value it can add, even to small solo projects. It’s easy to keep track of changes made months or even years ago by logging into the repository and looking at its change history.
