Version Control
A system that tracks and manages changes to code or files over time, enabling collaboration and change history.
Definition
Version control is a system that records changes to files over time, allowing developers to track modifications, revert to previous states, and collaborate without overwriting each other's work. Git is the most widely used version control system, with platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket providing hosting and collaboration tools.
Version control enables branching — creating parallel versions of code for feature development or experimentation — and merging, which combines changes from different branches. This workflow is fundamental to modern software development.
Why It Matters
Version control is the safety net that makes modern software development possible. Without it, teams cannot reliably collaborate, track what changed, or recover from errors. Every professional development team uses version control as a foundational practice.
For businesses, version control provides accountability, audit trails, and disaster recovery. When a bug is introduced, version control makes it possible to identify exactly when and where the change occurred, dramatically reducing debugging time.
Examples in Practice
A development team uses Git branching to allow five engineers to work on different features simultaneously, merging their work together daily without conflicts.
A critical production bug is traced through version control history to a specific commit made three weeks earlier, allowing the team to revert the change within minutes.
A freelance developer uses version control to maintain separate branches for each client's customizations, allowing them to update the core product and selectively apply changes to each client's version.