%0 Journal Article %1 Spinellis2005 %A Spinellis, Diomidis %D 2005 %I Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) %J IEEE Software %K Best-practices Configuration-Management Control-systems Data-mining Documentation History VCS Version-Control-System Writing assembly-language production-code programming punched-card-programming software-engineering version-control-systems %N 5 %P 108--109 %R 10.1109/ms.2005.140 %T Version control systems %U https://doi.org/10.1109%2Fms.2005.140 %V 22 %X Sane programmers don't write production code without the help of an editor and an interpreter or a compiler, yet the author has seen many software projects limping along without using a version control system. We can explain this contrast if we think in terms of the increased start-up costs and delayed gratification associated with adopting a VCS. We humans typically discount the future, and therefore implementing version control in a project appears to be a fight against human nature. It's true that you can't beat the productivity boost that compilers and editors provide, but four decades after punched-card programming in assembly language has gone out of fashion, we must now look elsewhere for our next efficiency gains. And if you or your project isn't using a VCS, adopting one might well be the single most important tooling improvement you can undertake.

@article{Spinellis2005, abstract = {Sane programmers don't write production code without the help of an editor and an interpreter or a compiler, yet the author has seen many software projects limping along without using a version control system. We can explain this contrast if we think in terms of the increased start-up costs and delayed gratification associated with adopting a VCS. We humans typically discount the future, and therefore implementing version control in a project appears to be a fight against human nature. It's true that you can't beat the productivity boost that compilers and editors provide, but four decades after punched-card programming in assembly language has gone out of fashion, we must now look elsewhere for our next efficiency gains. And if you or your project isn't using a VCS, adopting one might well be the single most important tooling improvement you can undertake.}, added-at = {2020-08-31T02:41:15.000+0200}, author = {Spinellis, Diomidis}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/23518006c34e275278047767665bc75c5/gbschenkel}, doi = {10.1109/ms.2005.140}, interhash = {770c812295425755c2517525250c290c}, intrahash = {3518006c34e275278047767665bc75c5}, issn = {1937-4194}, journal = {IEEE Software}, keywords = {Best-practices Configuration-Management Control-systems Data-mining Documentation History VCS Version-Control-System Writing assembly-language production-code programming punched-card-programming software-engineering version-control-systems}, month = sep, number = 5, pages = {108--109}, publisher = {Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ({IEEE})}, timestamp = {2020-08-31T02:41:15.000+0200}, title = {Version control systems}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1109%2Fms.2005.140}, volume = 22, year = 2005 }