Version Control Systems
Phil Pratt-Szeliga
Fall 2010
Version Control Systems:
Overview
Definitions
Motivation
Client-Server Version Control Systems
– Subversion
Distributed Version Control Systems
– Git
– Mercurial
Version Control with Test Driven Development
References
Definitions
Revision Control
– “Management of changes to documents, source
code or other information stored as computer
files”
Version Control System
– Software tools to support revision control
Motivation
Individual Usage
– It is 10pm. You are two hours before the deadline of project
1 code.
– You are trying to get something to work better and you
make quick change to your reflection library
– It doesn’t work so make yet another change, and another,
and so on
– You tried so many things to make your project perfect that it
no longer works at all
– You need to redo your work
– How many people have been here?
– With Version Control Systems and correct usage this can
disappear
Motivation
Team Usage in the same physical location
– The new person on your team at work makes a
change and breaks everything
It will take days or weeks to put things back to how they
where
With Version Control Systems it will less of a problem
– You are a manager and an experienced person
makes a great change that solves a long standing
problem
What did he or she do?
With Version Control Systems you can easily look at
differences from one version to the next
Motivation
Team Usage over the Internet
– How can we easily have one place to put files?
– How can we easily get new versions of files?
– How can we review changes that contributors
make?
– Version Control Systems answer all of these
questions
Motivation
Team Usage in the same or different physical
locations
– How do we let two people work on the same file
– Do they coordinate with each other
Over the phone?
Through email?
Instant messanger?
– How do you know who is editing a file?
Motivation
Releasing a product to the customer
– Whenever you give product code to a customer
you should keep an exact copy of all source for
yourself
– When they call you up and there is a problem you
need to be able to go to the version you sent
them and fix the problem
– Version control systems can facilitate this
Client-Server VCS
In Client-Server VCS there is one centralized
server and a number of clients
– The centralized server holds all the files under
revision control
– The clients access the files from the centralized
server
Subversion is the most popular Client-Server
VCS designed to replace CVS
Client-Server VCS
Client
Client Server
Client
Subversion Client-Server VCS
Many Open Source Projects are converting
from Subversion to DVCS (git, mercurial, bzr)
– Making a commit requires a network connection
– Merging is harder than in mercurial
– Second tier contributers are left with no versioning
system
Free hosting for open source projects:
– http://code.google.com/
Distributed VCS
In Distributed VCS there is a peer to peer
model
– When you want to get the code, you download the
entire repository contents
– You can then simply host a repository by allowing
incoming connections
– DVCS is used in Open Source Software
Development
The maintainer of a project could stop answering his or
her emails
The other developers already have the full repository.
Distributed VCS
Peer
Peer
Peer
Mercurial DVCS: Definitions
Init
– Make a new repository (all mercurial files are stored in
the .hg folder)
Clone
– Get a full copy of another repository
Add
– Tell Mercurial what files you want to be placed in the next
commit
Commit
– Make a revision from all the added files that has a
message of what has been changed
Mercurial DVCS: Definitions
Pull
– Get the changes from a peer
Push
– Send your changes to a peer
Make sure you commit before pushing and
pulling
Mercurial DVCS: Definitions
Update
– Make a selected revision the current revision
– Files on the filesystem are overridden
– Make sure your commit or before updating
Merge
– Incorporate the changes from two repositories
that have a common root into one new repository
First Project Usage Of Mercurial
Each student will have his/her own folder on
a server provided by SU
You can use Mercurial on your individual
computer and make backups on the server
Sharing code with other students in the first
project is forbidden! Doing so can result in
an F in the course.
Final Project Usage of Mercurial
Each student will have his/her own directory
on a server provided by SU
Use this folder to share code with other
students
– Access is configured by HgRepoManager
– Pull from someone's repository
– Incorporate the changes you want from them
– Push to your repository and with their permission,
push to their repository
Practices of using Version Control
When you start the day get the latest version
Before submitting your code, get the latest
version again and compile and test again
Don’t submit your code unless it at least
compiles. Preferable to only submit code
that functionally works
Version Control with Test Driven
Development
1. Get latest
2. Compile
3. Add a new unit test
4. Compile
5. Develop to make a unit test pass.
6. Get latest (merge latest changes)
7. Compile
8. Run Unit Tests
9. If they pass push to maintainer
(No code gets pushed if it doesn’t compile and the unit
test passes)
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_control
http://wiki.netbeans.org/MercurialVersionControlScreenshots
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0374/
