Track Your Configurations With a Version Control System (VCS)
Contents
Track Your Configurations With a Version Control System (VCS)#
In software development, a version control system is a tool that helps manage changes to source code over time. It allows developers to work on different versions of a codebase simultaneously, and track and merge changes from different developers. In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to the basics of version control systems, advantages of adopting VCS, and explore some of the most popular version control categories in use today.
Why we need a Version Control System?#
There are several advantages of adopting VCS for a task as follows:
Cooperation#
At any time, anybody or everyone on the team can collaborate on any project file. There is no doubt about where the most current edition of a file or the entire project is. A version control system is at a shared, central location.
Effective Version Storage#
Maintaining a version of a file or a whole work upon changing things is a necessary practice, so without a VCS, it becomes difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone.
We may save the full project and provide the names of the versions using a VCS. In a README section, we may additionally describe the projects and what changes have been made in the latest revision versus the prior one.
Recovering Previous Versions#
When you make a mistake with your current code, you may easily restore the modifications in a matter of minutes.
Various forms of Version Control Systems#
Version Control Systems are classified into several categories.
Local VCS#
All changes to a file in a local VCS are stored on the local computer, which has a database that contains any modifications to a document under revision control, such as the revision control system (RCS).
Centralized VCS#
We can cooperate with the other Devs on various machines using a centralized version control system. Therefore, for these VCS, we require a single server that has all of the versions of files. Users take a look at or check contents via a single central server, such as Subversion (SVN).
Distributed VCS#
In a decentralized VCS, the user can check the most recent version of the file. The client may also replicate the entire repository. As a result, if any of the servers fails, the user repositories may be transferred back to the server to recover them. Git is one example of this which we will dedicate another blog for explanation of basic Git.
Summary#
Upon completing this blog, now you know the general aspects and benefits of a Version Control System. If you want to keep track of every modification to the configuration file, VCS is the way to go.
See also
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