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| author | Owen Jacobson <owen.jacobson@grimoire.ca> | 2015-07-03 22:31:49 -0400 |
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| committer | Owen Jacobson <owen.jacobson@grimoire.ca> | 2015-07-03 22:35:09 -0400 |
| commit | 76aed6ef732de38d82245b3d674f70bab30221e5 (patch) | |
| tree | d50e9a296d91ef8a49bcb29c3e80096f200a3c26 /.html/dev/why-scm.html | |
| parent | 92f66d3e3a0996bb1fad9dc83d7e184f92673e5d (diff) | |
Fuck it, serve the files directly.
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| -rw-r--r-- | .html/dev/why-scm.html | 147 |
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diff --git a/.html/dev/why-scm.html b/.html/dev/why-scm.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d278190 --- /dev/null +++ b/.html/dev/why-scm.html @@ -0,0 +1,147 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html> +<head> + <title> + The Codex » + Why we use SCM systems + </title> + + <link + rel='stylesheet' + type='text/css' + href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Buenard:400,700&subset=latin,latin-ext'> + <link + rel="stylesheet" + type="text/css" + href="../media/css/reset.css"> + <link + rel="stylesheet" + type="text/css" + href="../media/css/grimoire.css"> +</head> +<body> + +<div id="shell"> + + <ol id="breadcrumbs"> + + <li class="crumb-0 not-last"> + + <a href="../">index</a> + + </li> + + <li class="crumb-1 not-last"> + + <a href="./">dev</a> + + </li> + + <li class="crumb-2 last"> + + why-scm + + </li> + + </ol> + + + + <div id="article"> + <h1 id="why-we-use-scm-systems">Why we use SCM systems</h1> +<p>I'm watching a newly-minted co-op student dealing with her first encounter +with Git, unhelpfully shepherded by a developer to whom everything below is +already second nature, so deeply that the reasoning is hard to articulate. It +is not going well.</p> +<p>I have the same problem, and it could be me trying to give someone an intro to +Git off the top of my head, but it's not, today. For next time, here are my +thoughts. They have shockingly little to do with Git.</p> +<h2 id="assumptions">Assumptions</h2> +<ul> +<li>You're working on a software project.</li> +<li>You know how to read and write code.</li> +<li>You're human.</li> +<li>You have end users or customers - people other than yourself who care about + your code.</li> +<li>Your project is going to take more than a few minutes to reach end of life.</li> +</ul> +<h2 id="the-safety-net">The safety net</h2> +<p>Having a record of past states and known-good states means that, when (WHEN) +you write some code that doesn't work, and when (WHEN) you're stumped as to +why, you can throw your broken code away and get to a working state again. It +also helps with less-drastic solutions by letting you run comparisons between +your broken code and working code, which helps narrow down whatever problem +you've created for yourself.</p> +<p>(Aside: if you're in a shop that “doesn't use source control,” and for +whatever insane reason you haven't already run screaming, this safety net is a +good reason to use source control independently of the organization as a +whole. Go on, it's easy; modern DSCM tools like Mercurial or Git make +importing “external” trees pretty straightforward. Your future self thanks +you.)</p> +<h2 id="historical-record">Historical record</h2> +<p>Having a record of past, released states means you can go back later and +recover how your project has changed over time. Even if your commit practices +are terrible, when (WHEN) your users complain that something stopped working a +few months ago and they never bothered to mention it until now, you have some +chance of finding out what caused the problem. Better practices around <a href="commit-messages">commit +messages</a> and other workflow-related artifacts improve your +chances of finding out <em>why</em>, too.</p> +<h2 id="consensus">Consensus</h2> +<p>Every SCM system and every release process is designed to help the humans in +the loop agree on what, exactly, the software being released looks like and +whether or not various releasability criteria have been met. It doesn't matter +if you use rolling releases or carefully curate and tag every release after +months of discussion, you still need to be able to point to a specific version +of your project's source code and say “this will be our next release.”</p> +<p>SCM systems can help direct and contextualize that discussion by recording the +way your project has changed during those discussion, whether that's part of +development or a separate post-“freeze” release process.</p> +<h2 id="proposals-and-speculative-development">Proposals and speculative development</h2> +<p>Modern SCM systems (other than a handful of dismal early attempts) also help +you <em>propose</em> and <em>discuss</em> changes. Distributed source control systems make +this particularly easy, but even centralized systems can support workflows +that record speculative development in version control. The ability to discuss +specific changes and diffs, either within a speculative line of development or +between a proposed feature and the mainline code base, is incredibly powerful.</p> +<h2 id="the-bottom-line">The bottom line</h2> +<p>It's about the people, not the tools, stupid. Explaining how Git works to +someone who doesn't have a good grasp on the relationship between source +control tools and long-term, collaborative software development won't help.</p> + </div> + + + +<div id="comments"> +<div id="disqus_thread"></div> +<script type="text/javascript"> + /* * * CONFIGURATION VARIABLES: EDIT BEFORE PASTING INTO YOUR WEBPAGE * * */ + var disqus_shortname = 'grimoire'; // required: replace example with your forum shortname + + /* * * DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE * * */ + (function() { + var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true; + dsq.src = 'http://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js'; + (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq); + })(); +</script> +<noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href="http://disqus.com/?ref_noscript">comments powered by Disqus.</a></noscript> +<a href="http://disqus.com" class="dsq-brlink">comments powered by <span class="logo-disqus">Disqus</span></a> +</div> + + + + <div id="footer"> + <p> + + The Codex — + + Powered by <a href="http://markdoc.org/">Markdoc</a>. + +<a href="https://bitbucket.org/ojacobson/grimoire.ca/src/master/wiki/dev/why-scm.md">See this page on Bitbucket</a> (<a href="https://bitbucket.org/ojacobson/grimoire.ca/history-node/master/wiki/dev/why-scm.md">history</a>). + + </p> + </div> + +</div> +</body> +</html>
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