Source Control
What is Source Control?
Source control is the management of multiple revisions of the same unit of information. In web development, It is to manage ongoing code revisions and other critical information worked on by a team. Source control can help developers work together by tracking changes, merging changes that have been made concurrently, creating "builds" that allow for better testing and "rollback" to previous versions, as well as providing a self-documenting structure that gives developers more information as they are working.
If implemented and utilized effectively, source control can make collaboration easy, while at the same time protecting the code base to create a more stable environment. It would also help Web Strategies troubleshoot problems with the servers and errors in applications, which results in more uptime on the servers and less problems overall.
There are many different kinds of source control and source control software, but in web development two of the most common are CVS (Concurrent Version System) and SVN (Subversion).
Implementation at OHSU
Web Strategies is currently beta testing Subversion as a source control client and evaluating it as a possible resource for developers. If the evaluation is successful, then Subversion will be made available a tool for collaborative application work. Source control can help facilitate rapid development, create better platform stability, and allow more effective collaboration across departments.
While there is no deadline for rollout to the larger OHSU application development community, our goal is to complete evaluation at the end of Q3 2008.
About Subversion
Subversion is open source software written in the programming language C and uses APR, the Apache Portable Runtime library, as a portability layer. One of the strongest features of SVN is the many ways that it can be accessed; there are a variety of clients running on a variety of platforms that can all access the same source code.
If you want to learn more about Subversion, the website has great information. You can also download an online book that steps you through using and understanding Subversion called Version Control with Subversion.
