Supportsoft Glossary

Systems for Tracking Code Changes

Version Control System allows code authors to keep track of and manage the versioning of their code over time. A VCS helps facilitate coding collaboration and provide a timeline of project activity that is based on a chronological history. Each modification in the code will be recorded as to who made the change, what was done, and when.

In today’s economy, Git and its associated repositories (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket) are the most commonly used version-control systems in the software-development arena. The Git repository and the GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket platforms all offer different means of addressing these issues, but they do offer a common way of accomplishing some of the same tasks, including the ability to create branches in your code. Branching allows developers to create branches in their code to allow a developer to create and test a feature or fix in a separate branch of the code without affecting the main code population until they are ready to merge all of the changes to the main branch.

The VCS systems and tools provide a method to create a mechanism to allow team members to work collaboratively without having to worry about creating conflicts with each other’s work. There are times when a code is broken or not functioning correctly and the version control system can allow a team to restore to a working version of the code or to provide a safe place to roll back changes.