Version Control

Who has heard of version control software? 🖐️


What is Version control?

The management of changes to documents, computer programs, large web sites, and other collections of information.

Examples:

  • Numbering of book editions

  • Wikipedia’s Page history


Where did it come from?

The need for a logical way to organize and control revisions has existed for almost as long as writing has existed, but revision control became much more important, and complicated when the era of computing began https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control

Elements of a Version Control system

  • Revisions are usually identified by a number or letter code, termed the “revision number”

  • Each revision is associated with a timestamp and the person making the change.

  • A new snapshot of a file is recorded every time a change is made to it.

  • Revisions can be compared, restored, and with some types of files, merged.