Control Time and Timelines
Explore how version control systems enable managing code versions over time, coordinating team efforts through branches and merges, and maintaining release timelines. Understand centralized and distributed systems to handle multiple development workflows and revert changes when needed.
We'll cover the following...
The purpose of a version control system is simple: it tracks some content (generally files) over time and allows us to commit new versions of content and roll back to previous versions. A competent system will also track multiple timelines and assist with merging content between them. With a basic understanding of how this works, it’s a tremendously useful tool.
Moving through time
There are a couple of reasons we may need to move back in time with our source code—and any content, for that matter. First, we may screw up and need to revert to a previous version. ]Sometimes, we’ll work ourselves into a mess, and the easiest path will be to throw away our last day of work and start over. A version control system allows us to do this easily.
Second, when we release code, we need the ability to go back and look at what we released. It’s entirely normal for problems to ...