Version Control Systems - (VCS)

What is VCS?

Version Control Systems is a category of software tools that helps users(developers) record changes to the software development project files by keeping track of modifications done to the code and enabling the team members to collaborate on those projects. 

Using a Version Control System helps team members(collaborators) work together in the same branch and separate their works by creating separate branches.

VCS is also known as SCM (Source Code Management) tools or RCS (Revision Control System).

✱ Important:- According to the number of collaborators there can be several branches in a Version Control System.

Why We Need to Use VCS?

If you are planning to deal with long term software development projects(big software development projects) that consists of technical concepts, require a collaboration of different team members and need frequent changes then you need to use a version control system in order to manage the version controlling of your project because it's not easy to manage the versioning changes in long term software development projects without any help of a VCS tool.

Advantages of Using VCS

1. One of the main advantages of using VCS is Revert unwanted Changes, Compare and Resolve Conflicts.  
2. Another main advantage of using VCS is it keeping a history of all changes within the code and it includes streamlining the development process and it manages the code for multiple projects.
3. Another advantage is a Version Control System can be Integrated with several Software      Development Tools such as PaaS providers, Integrated Development Environments (IDE), and Build Automation Tools.

• A Version Control Software saves all changes within a repository. So, Programmers can Revert any of those unwanted changes(undo those unwanted changes)
• Developers can Compare their current code with previous versions of the code to Resolve Conflicts. This is a good option to reduce human errors and unexpected results to some extend.

Difference between Remote Repository and Local Repository

1. Remote Repository - It can be considered as a database of project changes. It contains all the edits(changes done by you and all other team members) and past versions of the project.
2. Local Repository - In Local Repository, It keeps a personal copy of all the files in your project. This repository contains only the changes done by you. You can edit this copy, without affecting the work of others (these changes are independent of the changes in Remote Repository until you commit them) and you can finally Commit and Push your changes to the Remote Repository when your changes are ready to go.

Popular Version Control Systems

1. Git
2. CVS 
3. SVN (Subversion)
4. Mercurial
5. Monotone
6. Bazaar
7. TFS
8. VSTS
9. Perforce Helix Core
10. IBM Relational ClearCase
11. Revision Control System
12. Visual SourceSafe (VSS)
13. PVCS
14. darcs

So, let's discuss about few Open Source and Free Version Control Systems which mentioned above.

1. Git

Git is one of the best version control tools that is available in the present market.

Features:

• Provides strong support for non-linear development.
• Distributed repository model.
• Compatible with existing systems and protocols like HTTP, FTP, ssh.
• Capable of efficiently handling small to large sized projects.
• Cryptographic authentication of history.
• Pluggable merge strategies.
• Toolkit-based design.
• Periodic explicit object packing.
• Garbage accumulates until collected.

Pros

• Super-fast and efficient performance.
• Cross-platform
• Code changes can be very easily and clearly tracked.
• Easily maintainable and robust.
• Offers an amazing command line utility known as git bash.
• Also offers GIT GUI where you can very quickly re-scan, state change, sign off, commit & push the code quickly with just a few clicks.

Cons

• Complex and bigger history log become difficult to understand.
• Does not support keyword expansion and timestamp preservation.

2. CVS

CVS has been the tool of choice for a long time and is another most popular revision control system in the present market.

Features

• Client-server repository model.
• Multiple developers might work on the same project parallelly.
• CVS client will keep the working copy of the file up-to-date and requires manual intervention only when an edit conflict occurs
• Keeps a historical snapshot of the project.
• Anonymous read access.
• ‘Update’ command to keep local copies up to date.
• Can uphold different branches of a project.
• Excludes symbolic links to avoid a security risk.
• Uses delta compression technique for efficient storage.

Pros

• Excellent cross-platform support.
• Robust and fully-featured command-line client permits powerful scripting
• Helpful support from vast CVS community
• allows good web browsing of the source code repository
• It’s a very old, well known & understood tool.
• Suits the collaborative nature of the open-source world splendidly.

Cons

• No integrity checking for source code repository.
• Does not support atomic check-outs and commits.
• Poor support for distributed source control.
• Does not support signed revisions and merge tracking.

3. SVN

Apache Subversion, abbreviated as SVN aims at to be a best-matched successor to the widely used CVS tool before.

Features

• Client-server repository model. However, SVK permits SVN to have distributed branches.
• Directories are versioned.
• Copying, deleting, moving and renaming operations are also versioned.
• Supports atomic commits.
• Versioned symbolic links.
• Free-form versioned metadata.
• Space efficient binary diff storage.
• Branching is not dependent upon the file size and this is a cheap operation.
• Other features – merge tracking, full MIME support, path-based authorization, file locking, standalone server operation.

Pros

• Has a benefit of good GUI tools like TortoiseSVN.
• Supports empty directories.
• Have better windows support as compared to Git.
• Easy to set up and administer.
• Integrates well with Windows, leading IDE and Agile tools.

Cons

• Does not store the modification time of files.
• Does not deal well with filename normalization.
• Does not support signed revisions.

4. Mercurial

Mercurial is a distributed revision-control tool which is written in python and intended for software developers. The operating systems that it supports are Unix-like, Windows and macOS.

Features

• High performance and scalability.
• Advanced branching and merging capabilities.
• Fully distributed collaborative development.
• Decentralized
• Handles both plain text and binary files robustly.
• Possesses an integrated web interface.

Pros

• Fast and powerful
• Easy to learn
• Lightweight and portable.
• Conceptually simple

Cons

• All the add-ons must be written in Python.
• Partial checkouts are not allowed.
• Quite problematic when used with additional extensions.

5. Monotone

Monotone, written in C++, is a tool for distributed revision control. The OS that it supports includes Unix, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Features

• Provides good support for internationalization and localization.
• Focuses on integrity over performance.
• Intended for distributed operations.
• Employs cryptographic primitives to track file revisions and authentications.
• Can import CVS projects.
• Uses a very efficient and robust custom protocol called netsync.

Pros

• Requires very low maintenance
• Good documentation
• Easy to learn
• Portable design
• Works great with branching and merging
• Stable GUI

Cons

• Performance issues observed for some operations, most visible was an initial pull.
• Can’t commit or checkout from behind the proxy (this is because of a non-HTTP protocol).

Popular Version Control Tools (Cloud Based Hosting Services to manage particular VCS Type Repositories)

1. Git Hub
2. Git Lab
3. Beanstalk
4. Per Force
5. Apache Subversion
6. AWS CodeCommit
7. Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS)
8. Mercurial
9. CVS Version Control (Concurrent Versions System)
10. Bitbucket

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