Version Control: Purpose and Types

Software version control is a developmental technique which assists programmers in multiple teams to be able to accomplish record management and perform analysis of codes when they are developing and after implementation of a software (Rao & Sekharaiah, 2016). Software version control traces all the alterations and modifications that are happening in software development. Software version control tools ensure the following benefit for software developers:

1. Valuable software files are protected
2. It ensures flexibility and Efficiency during the software development process
3. It helps software programmers to keep track of changes during software development
4. Version control allows for team collaboration

Software version control can either be distributed or centralized. Both centralized and distributed version control is different based on their repository (Blischak, Davenport, & Wilson, 2016). Centralized software version control has only one repository whereas distributed software version control has multiple repositories. The distributed version is modern, faster and error-free. The working copy and the repository are the primary components of a software version control. Version control helps you to recover programs that are prior versions in case a problem arises in the program that is currently being worked on. If a programmer follows a new method, but the results or the codes are not as per their requirements, version control can help them revert back to the old codes (Kaur, Kaur, & Singh, 2019).

In case future versions of the software have problems various changes in in the software code can be traced through version control history to check what went wrong by referring to the codes that have already been committed. Also, a software developer can be able to use version control to avoid future mistakes when developing the software (Vuorre & Curley, 2018).

Version control works on the concept of saving copied files which are created when the programmer is writing the program and a copy stored in the repository servers. These copies can be viewed for reference and contain information such as the programmer’s name when changes were done and other vital information necessary for tracking the critical steps in software development. The repository server that is maintained can serve as a backup in case the program files that the programmer was working on fail (Singh & Kaur, 2013).

Version control allows programmers who are working on a given software to lock their files so that no other programmer can be able to overwrite these files and once the project is completed the files can be unlocked so that other programmers can edit the code. This ensures that not everybody has access to the software files or not anybody can edit the source file. Version control allows programmers to issue file permissions such as read-only access to allow the monitoring of changes in software codes (Wilson et al., 2017).

Git Version Control

 Different programmers will have various levels of access with some only being able to read others being able to read and write while some are able to read, write and execute such as admins. Github has been providing version control for a very long time and will be discussed in the next section (Waltemath et al., 2013).

Git Version Control

This is among the best version control code tool which is accessible in the current market. Git mostly offers strong hold up for non-linear development, distributed repository and competent of efficiently handling small and large sized projects (Majumdar et al., 2017).

Github is reliable fast and free and allows for use by open-source projects. Github provides usage of different work frameworks, and it’s a web-based system that is built on the Git version control system. For instance, in Github, a programmer can create their own repository where they can download and upload their files and make changes in the codes that are already uploaded and share them with their team members.

Team members can be able to detect any conflicts if they are working on the same files they can later be able to match the files together and do file parenting and forking so that all the team members can have the files being worked on by the colleagues without affecting the main software file (Zolkifli, Ngah, & Deraman, 2018).

Purpose of version control

Software version control provides programmers with both collaboration and access control such that they are able to create software copies of the remote repository on the local server. In a distributed repository programmers can be able to work in their local workspaces in a cloned repository where files are not locked. The modifications that are done on a local clone of the repository is created in the local workspace when a new project of software development commences. Once a software development project is completed the changes are committed to the local repository and later pushed to the central repository of a version control system. For programmers who do not have local servers, a network of services is incorporated in the version control system that allows for file archiving, mailing list maintenance, web-hosting services and tracking of bugs in the software development process (Greene, Esterhuizen, & Fischer, 2017).

Version control tools are software category which in most cases assists a software group manages transformations to source system or code over the occasion. However, this software tool (version control) keeps all modifications track to the code through a unique type of database. In case of a mistake occurrence, developers are more likely to turn the clock back then compare previous code or system versions in order to assist in fixing the error and at the same time minimizing disturbance to every team member (Rao & Sekharaiah, 2016).

Centralized vs. Distributed Software Version Control

A version control code tool is basically a software utility which is used to track as well as manage transformations to a file-system. The version control code provides joint utilities to integrate as well as share file-systems transformations to different users of the version control code. The major purpose of the version control code is to track the deletion, modification as well as additional actions employed to directories as well as files. A code repository is mostly sued to describe when the version control system is tracking a file-system (Vuorre & Curley, 2018).

Impact of not using version control on software development.

Software development organizations have many programmers working on the same or multiple projects simultaneously. It is thus essential that coordination of these projects and individual programmer’s work is well-coordinated to ensure successful completion of each project. The probability of errors occurring can be highly reduced by ensuring that the history of each individual’s work is well documented. This is where version control comes in. Since time is of importance during software development each Milestone that is complete need to be documented, failure to use version control to trace complete work may see some programmers repeating work that has already been done (Singh & Kaur, 2013).

In cases of very large software programs that are not using software version control, a minor error that would have otherwise needed to recover a previous version may see the development team forced to start the whole project all over again. This is a waste of time, money, resources and energy that could be used more productively on other projects.

The most critical feature at version control of software developers is the backup feature. Version control will help organizations to obtain historical data on projects that it has done in the past. Troubleshooting using version control is made easier as different versions can be compared. The network computing can be performed while ensuring that there is no loss of data (Wilson et al., 2017). Version controls help in testing, analysis and automation of the software development process without which it’s a tiresome task. Also, software version control provides an important feature of notification so that software developers can keep track of their users.

References

Blischak, J. D., Davenport, E. R., & Wilson, G. (2016). A Quick Introduction to Version Control with Git and GitHub. PLOS Computational Biology, 12(1), e1004668. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004668

Greene, G. J., Esterhuizen, M., & Fischer, B. (2017). Visualizing and exploring software version control repositories using interactive tag clouds over formal concept lattices. Information and Software Technology, 87, 223–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2016.12.001

Kaur, I., Kaur, P., & Singh, H. (2019). An empirical evaluation of an advanced version control tool in conflict detection and resolution. International Journal of Computers and Applications, 41(1), 78–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/1206212X.2018.1512223

Majumdar, R., Jain, R., Barthwal, S., & Choudhary, C. (2017). Source code management using version control system. 2017 6th International Conference on Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization (Trends and Future Directions) (ICRITO), 278–281. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRITO.2017.8342438

Rao, N. R., & Sekharaiah, K. C. (2016). A Methodological Review Based Version Control System with Evolutionary Research for Software Processes. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Competitive Strategies, 14:1–14:6. https://doi.org/10.1145/2905055.2905072

Singh, H., & Kaur, K. (Eds.). (2013). Designing, Engineering, and Analyzing Reliable and Efficient Software: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2958-5

Vuorre, M., & Curley, J. P. (2018). Curating Research Assets: A Tutorial on the Git Version Control System. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(2), 219–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918754826

Waltemath, D., Henkel, R., Halke, R., Scharm, M., & Wolkenhauer, O. (2013). Improving the reuse of computational models through version control. Bioinformatics, 29(6), 742–748. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btt018

Wilson, G., Bryan, J., Cranston, K., Kitzes, J., Nederbragt, L., & Teal, T. K. (2017). Good enough practices in scientific computing. PLOS Computational Biology, 13(6), e1005510. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005510

Zolkifli, N. N., Ngah, A., & Deraman, A. (2018). Version Control System: A Review. Procedia Computer Science, 135, 408–415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2018.08.191