Distributed version control

Subversion moves back into the Adopt section of the radar because it is a solid version control tool suitable for most teams. We consider Subversion’s features to be the basic standard for a modern version control tool. Thoughtworkers continue to embrace and recommend Distributed Version Control tools such as Git and Mercurial, but we caution that these systems often require deeper understanding to get the most out of them. New to the radar is GitHub, a “social coding” tool supporting both source code hosting and social networking. GitHub is arguably one of the main reasons Git has become the leading DVCS tool, and GitHub’s collaboration features are often used by enterprises that need to support distributed teams.

Distributed version control systems such as Git and Mercurial have had significant exposure in the past year or more as open source projects move to this toolset en masse. The social networking aspect that GitHub and Bitbucket have brought to distributed version control has helped to propel these tools forward and into enterprises looking for ways to develop across multiple geographies. The move for many to a distributed version control system has resulted in a move away from tools such as Subversion and other centralized version control systems. As organizations assess and choose between these two different toolsets, we suggest that you evaluate both in relation to your team’s specific needs. While we have seen widespread adoption of distributed version control tools within Thoughtworks and beyond, we still advocate the use of continuous integration and limits to the amount of time that code is spent outside of the main branch.