On 2/7/2011 9:15 AM, Ted Roche wrote: > Source code control is a necessity when the number of programmers > exceeds_zero_. >
Inspired by Father Ted's dictum, I have downloaded and tried TortoiseHg, which is a Windows packaging of Mercurial with a graphic user interface (the command line still works). I am very impressed by both the program and the documentation. Tried it out on a small app of my own that keeps track of which books I have read. You get to Hg (the chemical symbol for Mercury) via the Windows Explorer context menu while in your projects root directory, so there are no issues with paths etc. One click created a repository, as a sub-folder of my project. Saving the source files was quick and easy, also. Made some changes, did a Commit. Everything worked, and I could easily view all the changes (one of the best features). I then "recovered" the original version and Bingo! All my source files were back to the original state, like magic. My biggest problem is that I don't (yet) know what I'm doing. The Mercurial manual is excellent on defining the terminology and the history of source control, but never having worked with it I'm never sure exactly what it's going to do. The arcane mysteries of Push, Pull, and Merge will have to wait a while, but they're needed only when you're working on two different changes in parallel. The bottom line: Over 40 years I've developed my own system of documenting changes and versions and saving the source code, but this is better! I looked at Git, but the Windows interface tipped me to Tortoise. I'm going to keep it. As noted elsewhere, many VCS assume text files and don't do so well in detecting changes in "binary" files like SCXes. I didn't find any big problem here - sure, you can't "read" the changes, but just knowing exactly which ones changed is a fine thing. Dan Covill _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
