SCM

What is Source Code Management and How Can it Help You?

SCM tracks the history of changes to a source code repository and helps resolve conflicts when merging updates from different contributors.

Reasons to use SCM:

• Collaboration: SCM tools prevent one user from overwriting the changes of another, allowing many developers to work on the same code without stepping on each other’s toes.
• History: SCM tools track the complete development history of the software, including the specific changes which have occurred between releases and who made them.
• Release notes generation: Given the tracking of each change, the SCM can generate notes for software releases, which capture all the modifications introduced in the new release.
• Documentation and test management: SCM tools can manage not just software source code, but also test suites and documentation.
• Change notifications: To keep interested members of the team informed when changes occur to the source code.

Who uses SCM tools?

• Project developers who are writing source code.
• Project testers who must download the very latest changes.
• Advanced users who wish to try out code that is not yet stable, mature, or released.

What SCM tools does SourceForge.net support?

• Git
• Mercurial
• Subversion