Perhaps this is a recurring nightmare that makes you wake up screaming at night – you have multiple development teams working feverishly on making revisions to your most popular software line and suddenly you have NO IDEA where you are with the revised build and all the branching and merging has taken on a life of its own.

I have three words for you – version control system. Those three simple words can make all the difference between going down a nightmarish rat-hole of revisions and having a wildly successful, new-and-improved product launch. A version control system should be an integral part of your software configuration management (SCM) tool so that you and your team members can easily keep track of multiple revisions during parallel concurrent development. A good, comprehensive version control system is critical for development projects that include lots of codeline management and sharing between team members, especially when the teams are geographically distributed or located offshore.

So what makes a really good version control system for multiple revisions?

Well, it starts with stream-based architecture that takes the place of the traditional branch-and-label process. Because streams contain everything associated with a particular file, you can develop a rock-solid history of everything that happens during the revision process, creating an immutable audit trail that’s ideal for both internal audits and regulatory compliance. The comprehensive nature of stream-based architecture also makes rolling back to a previous file version faster, easier and a whole lot safer because the stream contains everything associated with that particular file.

Ideally, a good version control system provides a graphical dashboard that enables you to visually track all changes, making parallel and concurrent development easier and more intuitive. Graphical visualization also makes comparisons of different file versions safer, highlighting differences and minimizing the chance of error. And because visualization makes comprehension easier, merging codelines becomes simpler and quicker by reducing the amount of time spent analyzing and resolving merge conditions. As a result, branching and merging then become easier and more efficient, encouraging innovation while reducing time to release.

If you’re practicing agile software development, then you know the importance of multiple development teams and sharing. With an advanced version control system in place, sharing becomes much easier because developers can safely version in-progress code, store it in a private workspace, and share it with other team members when necessary. This means development teams can operate with greater flexibility and creativity, building features or entire codelines independently.

There’s a variety of different version control system tools available for managing multiple revisions, ranging from simple, basic freeware with minimal functionality to comprehensive systems that provide core version control functionality as well as sophisticated graphical configuration and codeline management. Depending on the size and scope of your development projects, there’s a version control system available that can meet your needs and end the multiple revision management madness.