Save Time And Money With Source Control Software
Large software projects are not the work of just one single computer programmer. Software developing companies employ hundreds of software programmers who work on their lines of code. In the end, all these written code lines are compiled together to create the large program and are managed with source control software. This method of creating large applications has the advantage of speed and time, but there are many perils, because things can be really messed up. By having tens or even hundreds of programmers work on different parts of the code, even the process of making small modifications to a part of the program can cause incompatibilities with the part of code written by another programmer. By basic verbal or electronic means, it is impossible to coordinate and ensure compatibility between the works of multiple software developers. Moreover, some programmers try out different versions of their part of the code and then save them all together, making the process of compiling all the work harder. Let us assume that a certain version of code, when finally compiled in the software, generates errors and problems. You have to waste time to find out if and where the previous versions of the code are and how they have changed to generate the errors. If the software producing company does not employ source control software (in order to monitor and keep track of all the changes to a developing program), it is harder to implement efficient bug fixes, to tell apart the differences between a program version and another and what debugging work a certain programmer does is not used efficiently by the entire developing group. This will lead to a waste of time and an inefficient coding process. Using source control software will not only help the development team keep track of all the changes brought to the code by a certain programmer during the developing process, but to track down and record all the changes of the entire development team. By utilizing a source control software the company also has another advantage: code reuse. All members of the team will also have instant access to all the code lines of the certain project. The team uses the source control software to keep a backup of all the program's files and versions. In this way editing a certain file in the project is simplified, as all a programmer has to do is to open the source control software, to retrieve the file and edit it. After he has finished editing a certain file, he saves it and the file is automatically added to the project's master copy. All the other members of the team will have immediate access to the modified file. The source control software can be configured to force users write down descriptions and explanations each time he edits a file in order to keep a chronologic record of all modifications. Developers can also see graphical differences between one version of the software and another. It is hard to imagine an efficient large program development process without using a source control software tool to help the developing team increase productivity and reduce production time. |
