Version Control in Software Development Projects

Any software development project that involves a team of people, as most of them do, requires some form of version control. Also known as revision control, version control allows the management of multiple revisions of the same project.

Taking even a small software development project as an example, a number of graphic designers and coders could be working on a project simultaneously. Every time they complete an aspect of the project they may wish to update the project. Version allows that each revision of the project is stored and all changes are associated with the person who made these changes.

There are a number of software tools available for version control that allow software development teams to manage their projects. Basic version control elements can also be found in applications like Microsoft Word, and is also commonly found on web applications like wikis.

However, they are at their most useful in software development environments whether the project team is based in one location or spread all over the globe. The real beauty of version control is that developers can return to any earlier state of the project that was 'checked in'. So, for example some code is 'checked in' that corrupts the whole project, it is simple to return to the previous state of the software before the damage was done. Version control software also makes everyone accountable for their own work as it tracks what was 'checked in' by whom.

Version control is also invaluable when it comes to bug fixes and dealing with known issues. As software is developed new bugs will emerge and version control can be valuable in determining when and where bugs appeared and what caused them.

Version control uses a centralized model where different stages of a project are stored in a shared server. When a file, or an entire project, is checked in it is updated on this server and given a version code or number. This is normally simple enough but things can get tricky if two developers make changes to and check in the same file at once.

Version control deals with this in one of two ways. It can either use file locking, where only one developer can access certain files at any one time. Alternatively, it can use file merging where a merged file with both developers' changes included. These may require further changes later to merge both sets of changes successfully. However, if possible it is best if only one developer works on a certain file at a time.

 

Written by: Frank J Klein - CIO

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