Comparing DW Code

Subject: Re: utility for compaing DW code across versions
Two very common version control systems used widely are SVN and CVS.

We use Tortoise SVN for version control of our files at work, and I use it for my websites too.

SVN is a rather generic form of version control utilized heavily throughout the internet. Tortoise SVN is a specific vendors implementation of SVN for a windows based computer. Tortoise costs nothing, but for it to be able to track revisions, you have to have an SVN "host" set up. I think it is possible to do that on your computer so that you can track revisions on your computer alone. We have SVN set up on work machines so that we can see the differences and track revision history for any changes any of us programmers make to the main "live" site.

SVN is most useful in a collaborative environment where you have several people that may be updating or working on the same files. It allows you to "undo" ("revert" is the technical name) changes that might have caused problems. It also allows you to go back several revisions, or to stage groups of files together in a sort of "release" called a "Tag", so that you can revert a whole bunch of changes on a bunch of files all at once. There are lots of other capabilities too.

Note: this is not a particularly easy or intuitive program to use, but it is one of the most widely used, and if you ever intend to work collaboratively with others on websites, this is the one I would recommend learning.