SOURCE CODE MANAGEMENT – TOP TOOLS IN THE INDUSTRY At the start, it was like all data and project information were recorded in a spreadsheet. A release engineer was responsible to keep track of the data like the project and the developer’s relationship and also the issues along with their status. As the saying goes, “To err is human”, there were lots of problem and misleads. To overcome this situation, Source Code Management system was developed. Source Code Management – A scheme to record project details: Source Code Management (SCM) system is used to track project details right from the member allocation to the issues status. It is also used to maintain a team’s coordination and services between the members. This SCM system reduces human errors and offers version control and file management schemes that reduces overwriting when a file is committed by more than a member. Easy-to-use Tools that help SCM: Industry has many Source Code Management (SCM) tools that tracks and offers control over the changes made to the repository or project. Below explained are some of the top SCM tools. SUBVERSION (SVN) – The most commonly used: Subversion is a version control tool which easily adapts to various users. Many leading projects like Apache, SourceForge, Ruby and even Python use SVN as their version control system to distribute code. Different Subversions are available for different OS like Windows which use Tortoise, MAC which uses Versions. Subversion can be used by different professionals from designers to developers and more. Major benefits of SVN over other versioning software/tools are o
Tracks revision in a systematic way
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Cleanly maintains the history of even a small change made to the repository
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Allows check the changes made with another revision
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Easily integrates with the OS shell
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Perfect support when needed
CONCURRENT VERSIONING SYSTEM (CVS) – The Grandfather: One among the oldest source code management tool, Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) is easy to use and even easy to learn. It is very simple to make sure file updates and revision are kept updated. Same as SVN, CVS also have many clients like TortoiseCVS for Windows, Xcode for MAC and more. It is mostly used by technical writers, system administrators and more. Some of the common factors to choose CVS are as follows o
Used in huge programming projects
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Stores files in a central repository
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History is retained completely
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At any point-of-time, “Commit” command can be easily called back.
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Simple and elegant system
Git – The Rising Star: Git, a source code management tool, offers a different kind of versioning called distributed version control system. It means that the code is not maintained in asingle central system rather it is divided and distributed among different bases. Because of this technique, Git has become one of the fastest source code management tools. Many open source projects like Linux Kernel, Fedora and more uses this tool. Github, a social networking site for developers, establishes Git as a version control tool for large projects. Github offers a creative frontend for projects like Prototype and more. Benefits of Git over SVN and CVS are o
Fastest of all the Source Code Management (SCM) tools
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Works as a distributed version control system
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Deployed with full version-tracking capabilities
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Easy branch handling schemes
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Required space to deploy this is really low
MERCURIAL – The Care Taker for Larger Projects: Similar to Git, Mercurial is also an open source distributed version control system which is little outside the scope of many designers and developers. This doesn’t mean that only small organization or small team shouldn’t use it. Mercurial is also extremely fast and the title is stated from the word Mercury referring god with eloquence, swiftness and cleverness characteristics. As said earlier, Git is quite complex for beginners while Mercurial has a much simpler system that even a beginner can use. It is preloaded with stand-alone web interface and extensive documentation. o
Mercurial’s command line interface is elegant, stable and fully featured
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Advanced GUI support
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You can contact the developers directly and suggest them with what you would like to add
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Provides support with clear training
LibreSource – The Manager of Collaborative Projects: Based on Java/J2EE, LibreSource is a set of collaborative too offers teams or individuals a very effective solution to keep their repository.
It is also called as the collaborative hub for project development. This SCM tool comes with built-in forums, Wiki pages, Subversion repositories, drop boxes, forms and more. This is simple yet effective tool which can be used by small developer too who are not a technical jargon. Some attention seeking benefits are
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Many built-in features make it a more important tool
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Simple and easy to use
Source Code Management has taken the project management and issue tracking and recording to a new level. Project management is now made easy!
Author’s Bio: A graduate in Engineering and Journalism with passion for photography and travel, Dhinesh Rajarathinam loves to write about various niches from arts to technology. He is currently working as a Technical Content Writer in K2B Solutions, a leading Web and Mobile App Development Company in India.
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