When I was in college, I learned quite a few things about Computer Science – the C++ STL, data structures, base components of an operating system, programming languages, compilers…the list goes on. One thing that I didn’t even really think about much until I had a summer internship doing software development was source control – in fact, I don’t think that I even knew it existed until I had to use it at my job.

Eric Sink, a software developer at SourceGear, and works on source control tools for Windows developers. He’s noticed that a lot of people don’t really know how to use source control, or why they should, and their companies aren’t doing anything to fix this problem (such as giving them training). Sure, you can learn as you go, as you need to on the job as I did – but wouldn’t it be more efficient to know all (or most) of what there is to know about source control going in, instead of after the fact?

Well, Eric attempting to fix that problem by writing a series of articles on source control – what it’s about, and how to use it. He’s written three chapters and the introduction so far, and while I know all that he’s writing about (I have been using source control on the job for over three years now), this would have been great to have when I was first out of school.

Hopefully he’ll continue this series soon, to help other new developers to learn how to use source control effectively.

Via Ian White.

Related posts:

The Emerging Economics of Open Source Software
Open Source Windows Software
The Rise of Interface Elegance in Open Source Software
Koders: The Source Code Search Engine
More Open-Source Infringement Detected

Hope you like that post!

Forever Geek is a resource for all things geek. You can stay tuned by having the latest FG news delivered to you for free via RSS.