I believe it is important, even for an individual. While you could, as you suggest, save a seperate version of a site into a folder, as you suggest, a source control system will let you handle this much more easily.
First, the systems generally only save "deltas" of files (basically, just the differences), so you will use a lot less disk space. Second, what if you forget to save a particular state, or realize later that you need something a little different from the state you chose to save? Third, how will you keep track of what the difference is between two states you have saved? What about when you have a dozen, or a hundred different directories of saved points in time? Source control systems greatly simplify this sort of thing - it's relatively trivial to see the history of a file or set of files, visually see the differences between them, and extract the right version of the right files. If you are diligent about adding good commit comments when you commit changes, you will be able to easily find what you need with a glance at the history. It's pretty easy to set up and use Subversion, for example, and I highly recommend giving it a whirl - I think you will find it worth the effort. On 5/7/07, Rick Faircloth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The question I have on this topic is would I, as an individual developer, > benefit from source control, or is this something only teams of developers > need to worry about. > > I can see versioning being useful... being able to "roll back" to a > previous > version of a site would be helpful. But I can always save a particular > state > of a site into a different folder as a version... very simple. > > So, does any of this source control talk apply to me? > > Rick > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Doug Bezona [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 1:04 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Re: Adobe CS3 Web Edition leaves me wanting, moving to Eclipse! W > AS (RE: Frameworks) > > > Now, I'm looking into better source control for me and my other web > > developer. I'm a PC. He's a Mac. Sounds like CFE is perfect for that. > > However, CFE needs to be pretty good since he prefers quick little HTML > > editors and doesn't quite have the mindset of source/versioning. > > > You need to separate the issue of which IDE you use (Eclipse, Dreamweaver, > etc.) from the issue of source control. > > Source control is, in my opinion, the far more important decision, and the > most pressing concern you should have. An IDE can give you a lot of > conveniences, but a proper source control system, diligently used, can > save > your bacon regardless of the number of developers. > > You can implement a system without changing the IDE you use - though you > will likely may find a particular IDE makes using a particular source > control system more convenient. > > I highly recommend reading this: > http://www.ericsink.com/scm/source_control.html > > It's a great overview of what source control systems do, and how to work > with them. It doesn't focus too much on any particular software, it's > intended a general guide. > > > Now, I'm ready to get back into that level of support which DW currently > > doesn't support, natively, as well as CFE (or so I have heard). > > > Eclipse definitely has much better options available for source control > integration. > > However, here are the caveats. We run Windows 2003/IIS and > > SQL2000/2005. I don't want to install MySQL. I don't want to install > > Linux. > > > Neither should be necessary. For the two major open source systems, > Subversion and CVS, they do technically have a database of sorts under the > hood, but it's pretty much self-contained, meaning you don't deal with it > directly. And both will run on Windows. > > So, I want a source/versioning solution that will run on Windows and SQL > > yet let a Mac connect to it as well. I would also prefer the solution > > to be open source/free since I won't be able to get financing for this. > > > You are probably looking at Subversion or CVS. Subversion is generally > considered the "best" option - basically a new and improved CVS. It's > widely > used, and there are a lot of options for connecting to it from various > IDE's, OS's, etc. > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion MX7 and Flex 2 Build sales & marketing dashboard RIAâs for your business. Upgrade now http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2?sdid=RVJT Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:277184 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
