Dennis Saputelli wrote:

> Gerhard, i am not really familiar with ver. control software except as a
> general concept 
> 
> if someone accidently saves an old file without making a meaningful
> change, how is that situation handled by the software ? i would assume
> it would need to

Seems you didn't quite complete the sentence, but I think I got the drift
of the question :)

Version control systems usually work on files. So if the file is changed
(content usually, sometimes also meta data like access permissions etc) and
committed, it gets treated as a new revision of the file. The system
doesn't know whether the change was accidental or intentional.

However, if you quit Protel with, say, intentional changes on sheet A but
not sheet B but both files are modified, you always can tell the version
system to discard the changes to sheet B -- of course only if you have them
in separate files, and of course you should be sure that there are no
relevant changes in sheet B :)

I'm working a lot with firmware and software, too, and it's from there that
I got into the habit of using version control software. But it's almost as
useful for other work. I say 'almost' because you get the most benefits
from it with diff-able and merge-able text files like normal source files
-- which CAD files usually aren't, even when they are stored as text.

For me, the main benefits with CAD files are:
- Centralized data storage (I'm not dependent on the backup procedures of
coworkers, synchronization between my own computers is organized)
- Communication (everybody on the team who needs it has access to all the
relevant revisions of schematic, board and related data, no file versions
get sent around by email)
- A well documented and organized way to retrieve past revisions (what got
sent to the client, to the board house, to wherever or whoever)

Gerhard

 
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