Version Control System on local network with no server

Question

I've searched for what the title mentions and I've read this and this and a few others that I can't find at the moment. But I've never used any sort of version control before, so I don't really understand a lot of what those threads are saying.

My problem is this - There are two/three of us on a LAN connection developing code, and every week or two we have to go around to figure out who has changed what and then synchronize all the code over the machines. This is clearly ridiculous, so I was wondering if a system like git or cvs (I don't know anything about either) would help.

I don't think using one of the machines as a 'server' is a good idea, because they may not always be switched on.

What would be a good version control system to use? (Preferably without a really steep learning curve, but anything is good.)

Answer 1

You can select and use any DVCS (D means "Distributed") in pure distributed mode (only p2p data-exchange).

For mixed environment (Windows-hosts in game) I'll suggest to forget about mentioned earlier here Git and use Mercurial (as Mercurial per se or as TortoiseHG), because

• Nercurial just better
• Mercurial (contrary to Git) have really easy and lightweight learning curve (you can start at Mercurial Kick Start Exercises, maybe on "Basic Mercurial" and "Remote Repositories" only)

Answer 2

You could use Git and Bananajour.

Git is a distributed version control system, you dont need a server to save your commits. http://git-scm.com/

Bananajour is a web front end for collaborating and publicizing branches on a network. https://github.com/toolmantim/bananajour#readme

Answer 3

I agree you should use a distributed version control system. Git is a good choice. With a distributed version control system, you don't need a server at all. That doesn't mean you can't have one though. Using an online one like github.com is advisable in case you lose access to your computer or a virus goes around the network or ...

Answer 4

One possibility would be to use an "online" version control offered by a website like http://www.java.net/. There you can create a project, and after that create a repository that you and your friends could use. This will allow you to always access the respository since it's hosted by java.net.

Answer 5

You should take a look at any of the following:

• Git
• Mercurial
• Plastic SCM (www.plasticscm.com) -> this is the one produced by the company I work for.

Any of them will let you implement new working patterns such us "feature branches" or "branch per task"

I've written a couple of posts about the working methods here:

• http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2010/08/branch-per-task-workflow-explained.html
• And this one, about the git flow and related patterns http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2010/03/branching-strategies.html

Hope it helps.