Revision Control System Recommendations

Question

I've reached a point in my independent development work where I would like to start using Subversion techniques.

Up to now, I've been simply making backups by exporting my current database, and zipping them together with my PHP project files.

I've read some articles online and watched a video with Linus Torvalds - the general verdict seems to be that Git is in and old CVS techniques are out.

I'm not currently operating under Linux, I do all PHP work out of Windows -> Eclipse. Due to the fact that Eclipse runs on JVM, jumping into Linux -> Eclipse will be more or less transparent - file system aside.

What I would like to accomplish is being able to keep a constant revision history - But I want this to be almost entirely transparent. Also, I work in an MVC framework, and I would like to be able to release my views to Designers, and have them work from within the revision control system too.

Will Egit accomplish what I need? Or is it too much overhead for a one-man workforce? What do you recommend I use so that I can keep a revision history?

I also require the service to be free!

Answer 1

Use Git or Mercurial

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Once upon a time, cvs almost completely replaced its competition and ruled the world of version control.

Then it was itself replaced by svn.

And now, svn has been replaced by git.

Git is more complex than svn, so an svn project might well want to just keep bashing along and not convert.

But svn's days are numbered. Git, Mercurial, and some proprietary systems are clearly the future of the VCS world. There are even mechanisms to cross-operate with other types of repositories.

Finally, the transition is easy, because git can be used with a central repo just like it was a (much) faster version of cvs or svn.