Version Control

As part of our standard programming practices, Lyon Technologies uses SourceSafe®, a version control product.

The primary function of a version control system (VCS) is to allow each programmer to back up his code, preserving a complete, functional "latest version." It also enables a team of developers to periodically synchronize and merge all modules of a system together. A VCS, such as SourceSafe, is absolutely indispensable when multiple programmers are working together on a project. Team members "check out" their own copy of a project's files, make their changes, and then "check in" the new, updated code. If one programmer happened to work on the same code file as another programmer, then the VCS will merge the changes together accordingly.

One advantage of a VCS is that it does not discard the previous state of each file. In fact, keeps all the versions of every file in its database so that each programmer can retrieve them as needed. This gives the team the option to work with previous versions of their code at any time. A complete file set can be retrieved from a day ago, a week ago, or a year ago with ease.

In practice, no VCS actually stores complete versions of each file-that would take up too much storage space. Instead, it merely stores the differences between consecutive versions. This is ideal when attempting to track down a bug that appeared in a particular release.

Any type of file can be added to a VCS. Lyon Technologies uses SourceSafe for all its deliverables, from stored procedure code sets to .NET® code to the user manuals that we produce.

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