On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:21:58 -0700 (PDT), CM <cmpyt...@gmail.com> wrote: : While we're on the topic, when should a lone developer bother to start : using : a VCS? At what point in the complexity of a project (say a hobby : project, but : a somewhat seriousish one, around ~5-9k LOC) is the added complexity : of : bringing a VCS into it worth it?
You are asking the wrong question. It depends relatively little on the number of lines, and much more on what you are likely to do with it. One thing is certain. If you are ever going to want to use a VCS, you can just as well start yesterday. Using a VCS is not an extra hassle to use. Only an added hassle to get started with. Personally I use the VCS as 1) My backup system; naturally doing incremental backups only. 2) A means to synchronise multiple boxes (not just my laptop and my desktop, sometimes a linux and a mac system, and dedicated number crunchers too), and merge changes made out of synch. 3) The possibility to make one branch to run a suite of jobs which may take a week or more, and still continue development independently on the main branch. As you can see, the number of lines is irrelevant. 1-2 mean that everything is VC-d, not only code for which the VCS is meant. And 3 is of course about what kind of code. I branch rather little. Programming is not my day job -- nor my main hobby, and I simply have not got the capacity to keep track of multiple branches. Even at 12-15kloc I have little use of the VCS for its intended purposes. If you take your development project more seriously, you may do more of that within the first 500 loc... But then, using VCS is not sufficient. You need to /think/ VC. In other words, taking up a VCS when the system is large enough to require it is too late. You need time to learn the thinking. -- :-- Hans Georg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list