Version Control
When I started working on the book I just finished, I decided to put it under version control using CVS. I liked being able to get a history of the document and the option to rollback to previous versions. I also liked being able to easily synchronize work between my laptop and my office.
However, I found CVS also limiting. So I tried Subversion, since I’d read it does a better job with things like renaming and moving files and directories.
Again, though, I found limitations that didn’t fit well with my way of working. Beyond installation and administration problems, I also found I wasn’t actually using the change tracking a whole lot. This is in part because I often work off-line, where it’s impossible to commit changes under the CVS/SVN model.
Enter darcs. I read about this somewhere and decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did! The system is easy to install, easy to administer, easy to use, and also powerful! Like a number of other next generation SCM systems, darcs is based on a distributed model. So, rather than having a single central repository, I can have one on each machine I work on. When i make a change somewhere, I record it whether I am online or not. When I am done, I “push†those changes to the other repository.
After one more permissions problem with Subversion, then, I decided to move my projects to darcs. So far so good!
