versioning.md

Why use a version control system?

Basic features:

• Maintain different versions of documents or code
• Ability to recover previous versions
• Track all changes to a document or code

Common tools you are already using supporting "version control":

• Owncloud
• OneDrive
• ...

From the list of files, it is clear who changed which file and when.

But some information is missing:

• What exactly was changed? (which section or row?)
• Why was it changed?

Why use a version control system?

Manual file versioning + CHANGELOG

Your folder:

my-document_v01.docx
my-document_v02.docx
...
my-document_v12.docx
CHANGELOG.txt

CHANGELOG.txt:

v01 -> v02
- Chapter 1 updated to contain last findings
- fixing typo on page 3

v02 -> v03
- rephrasing section 2 to adhere to standard
- add missing diagram
...

What exactly has changed? - Solved!

Why it was changed? - Solved!

Really?

note: overhead for doing this manually is huge

Using versioning system?

What happens when 3 people contribute?

my-document_v01_AK.docx
my-document_v01_AK_BP.docx
my-document_v02_revised.docx
my-document_v02_LP_revised-and-approved.docx
my-document_v002_draft_LP-AK_do-not-touch.docx
...
my-document_v12_we-made-it.docx
CHANGELOG.txt

What happens when 10 people contribute?