I’m an independent web designer/developer. Most of my work is building basic WordPress websites but I also do a bit of custom development in PHP. I have one bigger client that I do a lot of ongoing custom development for as they are continually trying to improve their website. I am the only web developer working on this site. Lately I’ve got to thinking that I really need to set up some sort of version control system for working on this website because it’s important to be able to easily figure out what has changed and when it was changed in case anything goes wrong on the site and to be able to easily roll back to a previous state. The site is running on an apache server. I have shell access but I’m not really comfortable in that unix/linux command line environment. I do my development on my local Windows PC and FTP it to the site. I have a development website that I work on when developing new features. I FTP my code to the dev server as I work on it, then once I’ve tested my code and I’m ready to make it live, I FTP it to the live site. What I’m looking for is something that’s really simple to set up and will not add much overhead to my existing process. I am not a command line type of guy so I would like a nice gui. I’ve done a bit of research and feel a bit overwhelemed because it’s not just a matter of picking a version control system but also how to set it up for my purpose. I don’t know if I should have a system that is just local on my machine and continue using FTP to update the websites or if I should have something more integrated with the server. So what I’m after is not just to pick out a suitible version control solution but also how to set it up for my scenario. i.e. I need a process as well as a version control system. To recap my needs in point form:
- Main need for version control is so that I can easily determine what has changed and when it has changed
- Easy to set up for my environment (Development on Windows PC, dev website and live website on LAMP server). Need an easy to follow guide to setup.
- Easy to use GUI
For a designer, or someone who doesn’t want to get their hands too dirty, I’d recommend Bazaar (http://bazaar.canonical.com/), hands down. It’s easy to use, and has at least one good GUI (called TortiseBZR). It works equally well on Windows and Linux, and (TortiseBZR) even adds functionality to the Window’s shell: providing custom icons for modified files and context menus. It was the first VCS I tried, and it was designed with the beginner in mind.
gitis awesome and featureful, but it’s all mostly command line.svnAll I have to say is, welcome to the 20th century. It’s outdated, and imo hard to use.hgis mostly like git, but perhaps with a better gui? Haven’t tried used it, much.