Like most development n00bs, after I started using version control, I never looked back.  And neither should you.

It required me to change the whole way that my office operated, though.  See, the way that we were doing things before seemed so simple; we just edited files and shouted at each other if we collided in our editing.  As it turns out, this was a bad thing, and there have been better alternatives around way longer than I’ve even been in this business.

But like most crotchety, over-egotistical developer-types it took a while for me to come around.  Here’s a brief history of my flirtations and eventual commitment to version control.

Our Blissful, Youthful Ignorance

This wasn’t really that long ago…

1..2..3... Easy Peasy Japanesey.. and stupid.

We would all work directly on the files directly on our development server.  We would sit down, SSH into the server using our favorite editor and code away, never thinking of change management, reverting back to old versions, or who would be responsible for what.  Conflict resolution seemed easy… if I was editing a file named welcome.php, I would simply shout across the room, “Hey Mike–don’t work on welcome.php right now, or I’ll have to beat you!”.

Our revision control system consisted of me creating and storing weekly backups of the entire database and file system.  If we made a change that killed the system, we’d simply either lose that week’s work or spend hours debugging it.  It was all gloriously simple.

Version Control Puberty — The Angsty Years

One day, I decided to implement Subversion, mainly because other developers were sneering at me and telling me I was a dummy.  And while I didn’t want to be a dummy, the whole thing seemed overly complicated.  Why would I want to increase complication when everything was working so simple?  I also had some fundamental issues with this new version control idea:

• First off, everybody has to have to get their own copy of the entire file set.  Bad!  Doom! Insecure! I have to trust my developers with the codebase? ::Gasp::
• Secondly, what do you mean that developers can’t see their changes on the server immediately upon commit without some hacked hook system?  This means they’ll have to run LAMP on their local boxes, too!  Geez.. now we have to have local dev environment setup procedures, too..
• Finally, SVN requires management of its own.  You know.. backing up, securing access, and generally managing.  More overhead and more complication!

Grudgingly, in order to remove the “dummy” label from my operations, I implemented Subversion.  It was difficult at first to understand how it would fit easily into our procedures, but with some very helpful free online material, we started using it.

And sure, I did have to write procedures for setting up local dev environments AND install a subversion clients AND manage a repository server, but you know what?

All of that stuff was way worth it.

All Grown-up Now

Let me repeat that: whatever frustrations version control causes, they are all worth it.

After being SVN disciples for a while now, our development procedures have matured.  Here’s how we do things:

The way we do things now.. Much better!

I’ve since tried other VCS systems like Mercurial, Git, and Bazaar, but have not found any compelling reason to switch.   Either way, using version control has saved our sorry butts on more than one occasion and has made life easier in about 1,001 ways.

As a bonus, it has also forced us to use better procedures and generate better development documentation, which is amazing, because we’re pretty lazy.  Now if only we could find a tool to better force us to behave when it comes to unit testing…

Well, that’s my story.  If I’ve inspired you to use VCS, hooray!  Here’s a helpful place to get started.  If not, you’re a dummy.