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Welcome to source!
source is a new version control server for Geographers in the University of Bristol. You can use source to store and manage your source code and documents.
What can source do for me?
Version control systems help you keep track of the different versions of files--especially source code files--which change and evolve during the course of a project. But, version control systems can do much, much more for you besides! source makes it easy to:
- Collaborate with other researchers.
- Package and make your code easily available--for the RAE, for example.
- Recover past versions of files--very useful for recovering from disasters.
- Highlight differences between two versions of a file--very useful for finding bugs.
- Keep a record of when changes were made, add reminders about why they might have changed, who changed them etc...
- Develop variants (branches) of your code simultaneously.
- Work on your code from several different computers--without losing track of what the latest version is.
How does Source do it?
source can host a repository for each project that you work on. A project's repository can be used to store all the source code files (and other documents if you like) associated with that project. source can then make these files easily available to all those you work on the project (through people's web browsers or installed client programs). source then keeps a track of all the changes that are made to those files as the project evolves.
The two key concepts are:
- a repository located on source,
- and local copies of the repository (working copies), which you create on your own computer and then work on.
Your changes are only recorded when you commit them back to your repository. At that point, there will be a new latest version of your code which other members of your project will have access to.
More Information on Version Control
Wikipedia has a good introduction to the topic of version control, if you would like to find out more. Alternatively, you might like to skip straight on to learning how you can use Subversion, the version control package installed on Source.