The great and the git
Using version control will help you manage your code and keep it archived for posterity or just let you duplicated existing projects…
Working with your files locally is all well and good, but as soon as you start collaborating with other contributors doing the same it becomes difficult. In the early days of the Linux Kernel, patches were sent over Usenet and email, reviewed by Linus Torvalds, merged with the current kernel and all uploaded to an FTP site. Maintaining a consistent codebase this way is cumbersome, especially as contributions went meteoric in the mid-90s. The solution was to use a proprietary version control system (VCS) called
BitKeeper.
Code was now stored centrally and enabled developers to fork and branch the code with impunity, queue up their patchsets and generally not have to worry about singing from different source hymnsheets.
For a time that worked well, but all good things must come to an end. The parable of Linux and BitKeeper’s divorce is an interesting one (it’s got mischievous reverse engineering, corporate bluster and supposed licence violations – read all about it at www.linuxjournal. com/content/git-origin-story). You’ll be pleased to hear it had a happy ending, with Linus creating a new, open source VCS which he called Git, a pejorative English-ism which he felt described himself nicely. Linus designed Git much differently from other VCSes of the era, drawing heavily from ideas about filesystems, which he knew a thing or two about.