Managing Complexity: Version Control Basics

Sven Erik Knop Senior Technical Specialist

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Quick overview of the speaker

Sven Erik Knop, Perforce Software

• Senior Technical Specialist

Joined Perforce 2007 as a Consultant

Twitter: @p4sven

Blog: https://www.perforce.com/blog/author/sknop

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Why version control?

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Best practice for Version Control

Single Source of Truth

Change sets

Branching and Flow of Change

Variant Management

Configuration Management and CBD

Continuous Integration

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Single Source of Truth

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Change sets

Task-oriented, can involve many files

Single intent

Narrow scope

Description for your future self and your colleagues

Consistent (read buildable)

Complete (tests, documentation)

Traceable

Reversible

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Tracing History

Across time

Across users

Across branches

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Tracing history across time

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Tracing history across users

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Tracing history across branches

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Branching and Flow of Change

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Variant Management

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Managing Complexity

Break projects into components

Manage components independently

Assemble components in configurations

Version configurations

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Component-Based Development (CBD)

Component

• Single unit of functionality

• Limited scope, clear purpose

• Easily aggregated and reused

• Developed independently

• Separate “life cycle”

CBD

• Managing component production

• Enabling component reuse

• Assembling components

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Managing Configurations

Projects are assembled from components

Each release has its own configuration

Configurations need to be versioned:

• Influences build and test

• Trace changes across whole project

• Recreate exact version delivered to a customer

• Essential for Continuous Integration

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Continuous Integration

Fast feedback on the quality of a check-in

• Essential for agile development

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In summary

Version control is the foundation of any development

• Single Source of Truth

• Essential for continuous integration

Manage complexity through component-based development

• Version configurations

Any questions?