Revision_control

According to Wikipedia, "Revision control, also known as version control
and source control... is the management of changes to documents,
programs, large web sites and other information, where a team of people
may change the same files." Changes are logged in multiple
#revisions of code can be stored and recalled
from anywhere at any time, similar to Wiki software.
ENIGMA and LateralGM
originally used #Subversion for collaborating
between developers and distributing updates amongst testers, but has
since moved to #Git.

Revision

Different versions of software/files with relatively minor modifications
are differentiated in a micro-versioning method called Revisions,
especially as it pertains to Subversion, Git, and Wiki. Developed
software can have hundreds, and even thousands, of revisions. The latest
revision is called the head revision, and it's usually what you deal
with when you wish to get the bleeding-edge latest developor's version,
such as when checking to see if a bug has been corrected, or for getting
the latest and greatest set of features. Sometimes, however,
bleeding-edge revisions will introduce bugs, making it desirable to
continue using an older revision.

Repository

A repository is where all code changes (revisions) are stored. Usually
there is some sort of main or central repository for the main project,
from which you will either fork or checkout to get your own working copy
which you can make changes on. The official repository URLs for each
project are:

• LateralGM:
  • Older SVN:
• ENIGMA:
  • Older SVN:

Clients

Should you choose to download software from its repository, you will
need a client. Note that this is not the preferred method of downloading
or updating ENIGMA for typical use: downloading/installing should be
handled by a installation package, if available, documented at the
Install page; updating is either handled by the
same package, or with the in-built automatic update mechanism, neither
of which depend on a client. Otherwise, the installation process is
documented on the relevant install page:

• Install:Git for the newer git-based
  install
• Install:Subversion for the older
  svn-based install.

Subversion

Subversion is a centralized revision control system. You keep a working
copy, but all changes are sent to, and received from a single central
repository. This is a simple and popular system for projects with a
coordinated team, and used to be the system of choice for ENIGMA and
LateralGM, until we learned how to use git. Now, both projects are
maintained in a Git repository. Because of this, obtaining Subversion
should no longer be necessary.

Linux usually provides a command-line subversion client in its package
manager. For instance, if it's not already installed,

• Apt-get: sudo apt-get install subversion
• Yum: sudo yum install subversion
• Pacman: sudo pacman -S subversion

There are also Graphical clients, if you are less inclined to using the
command line, or if your platform doesn't provide an easy way to get a
simple command-line client. We recommend one of the following
cross-platform clients:

• TortoiseSVN
• RapidSVN

A more comprehensive list of subversion clients is available on
Wikipedia,
but you are on your own for figuring out how to use them.

Git

Git is a distributed and fast revision control system. Your working copy
is an entire repository in itself, and you may send your changes
upstream to another, more centralized repository, which may or may not
be the main project's repository (if not, they may further submit their
changes to the main project's repository). This is perfect for
micro-managed teams or people who just want to do their own thing, which
may or may not be in line with the main project's vision. Because of the
freedom that this system gives, it has become the new system of choice
for ENIGMA and LateralGM.

Downsides: Some coordination is still necessary to prevent everyone from
splintering off and doing their own thing. The learning curve can be a
little steep at first, but this wonderful
guide makes it a piece of
cake, even if you do have to keep looking back to reference it.

Linux usually provides a command-line git client in its package manager.
For instance, if it's not already installed,

• Apt-get: sudo apt-get install git
• Yum: sudo yum install git
• Pacman: sudo pacman -S git

For graphical clients, if you're less inclined to use the command line,
you might try TortoiseGit,
although it appears to be Windows only. Also, gitk is a very popular
graphical git tool to have. The Eclipse standard
plugin tool is EGit, but it can be difficult to figure out. For the most
part, you're on your own as far as graphical clients go. We recommend
you just familiarize yourself with the command line, because it's not
that difficult.

Why Git

For the purposes that we kept running into, Git has a clear advantage.
Whereas SVN "just works" and git is more complex (or steeper learning
curve), once you get the hang of Git (which we have quickly done with
the help of some wonderful git tutorials - namely, this
one), it's the clear winner,
providing elegant solutions to things that we hacked around in SVN in
the past - such as subprojects and forks.

And all this, considering that
User:IsmAvatar was a diehard SVN fan, with
a little loathing for the complexity (and documentation overflow) of
git. Now she's converted pretty much all of her projects to Git. Read
the tutorial, and it's really not that much of a hastle after all.

Further discussion on the conversion from SVN to Git as it relates to
this project can be found in the Forum Announcement
Topic.