Git..

"What did you call me??"

Git is a free, open source fully distributed version control system originally written for the Maintenance of the linux kernel by None other than Mr *nix himself

Linus Torvalds (the original developer behind the linux kernel)

Whats Distributed Version Control?? You Ask..

In software development version control is the management of source code in a project,

Traditional version control systems use a 'Client - Server' based method of storing files, where a developer may "check out" a source file to work on it which will then make all other developers unable to modify that file to prevent conflicts.

Obviously for the linux kernel this would not be an option as a huge hoarde of developers would need to be able to work on the same files.

So the developers resorted to the distributed method of source control where instead of their being one "Central Repository" with a locking system each developer has a copy of the source in their own repository and then changes are vetted before merging to the master repo..

Well.. Kinda.. Its a little more complicated than that with massive open source projects but thats it in its simplest form.

My personal favourite advanatge of this??

It's Fast.

As most things are done locally theirs no network latency apart from at the end of the day when you push to your master repo(s)

To that end We've started the move of all our source to git.

The Learning curve is a little steep if you've never used the terminal on a Mac or Linux based computer..

But once you learn good source management you wont regret it!

How to's coming soon!