What Every VCS Must do

What Every VCS Must do

What does any Version Control System (“VCS”) need to be able to provide to its users?

1. File repository (“the repo”): The files in the repository created by the users, of course!
2. Meta-Data: For every change/checkin, a record of some “meta-data” about the changes/differences such as:
   • When the changes were made
   • Who made the changes
   • Comments/text the user adds when they check-in the the change (For example “This checkin fixes bug #141293847129384719″)
3. Change History: When requested by the user, report the changes/differences between all files in any aribtrary checkin A and checkin B.
4. Tags: A way to name and then refer to various versions of the source code when a noteworthy release is made. For example when you have the final check-in for version v1.0, you might tag the current source tree as v1.0. Later when you have version v1.5 checked out, but a customer calls with a bug in v1.0, you can easily “check out” the source code to v1.0 to inspect it and fix the bug.