April 13, 2020
Why version control?
In other words, why use git?
There is more than one answer, depending on your needs and circumstances.
Here is a whirlwind overview -- in a nutshell.
Software distribution
This is not what git was designed for, but is what many people use it for.
These days, if you want the source code for some project, you clone it from
some distribution site, probably github. For many people, this is all they
ever want, and it replaces the old business of fetching tar balls and extracting them.
A versatile backup system
If you are the sole author of a project, using git is an excellent way of keeping a
backup of your project. You add, commit, and push and rest easy knowning that
your code is safe on some repository server somewhere. This offers the bonus that
you can revert to past points in the code history. Another bonus is that this
is a ready made software distribution scheme.
This is my most common use case by far, and it serves me well.
I will not do serious work on a project without putting under git control.
Collaboration
This was the original purpose for which git was designed.
Git allows multiple people to work together on the same code base.
Because git is a distributed system, each person can work from their
local git repository most of the time and only push when they get
to a stable point. Books have been written on this.
Feedback? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's Computer Info / tom@mmto.org