Version Control System
Version Control System
Version Control System (VCS) is a software that helps software developers to work together and maintain a complete history of their work and their coding.
Listed below are the functions of a VCS
Allows developers to work simultaneously.
Does not allow overwriting each other’s changes.
Maintains a history of every version.
Following are the types of VCS −
Centralized version control system (CVCS).
Distributed/Decentralized version control system (DVCS).
In this chapter, we will concentrate only on distributed version control system and especially on Git. Git falls under distributed version control system.
Distributed Version Control System
Centralized version control system (CVCS) uses a central server to store all files and enables team collaboration. But the major drawback of CVCS is its single point of failure, i.e., failure of the central server. Unfortunately, if the central server goes down for an hour, then during that hour, no one can collaborate at all. And even in a worst case, if the disk of the central server gets corrupted and proper backup has not been taken, then you will lose the entire history of the project. Here, distributed version control system (DVCS) comes into picture.
DVCS clients not only check out the latest snapshot of the directory but they also fully mirror the repository. If the server goes down, then the repository from any client can be copied back to the server to restore it. Every checkout is a full backup of the repository. Git does not rely on the central server and that is why you can perform many operations when you are offline. You can commit changes, create branches, view logs, and perform other operations when you are offline. You require network connection only to publish your changes and take the latest changes.
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