Source code management is the practice of tracking modifications to source code. Keeping a running history of the changes made to a codebase helps programmers, developers and testers ensure that they’re always working with accurate and up-to-date code and helps resolve conflicts when merging code from multiple sources.
Source code management is important because multiple developers typically work in a shared codebase. And with each developer working on their respective feature, they could unknowingly make conflicting code changes — or one developer’s saved edits could overwrite the other developer’s changes.
Before the adoption of source code management, there were few safeguards to prevent these scenarios. Each time a developer started working on a file, they would have to let all the others know to ensure no one else was working on it simultaneously.
That said, it was hardly a foolproof process. And when it worked, this method left no record of all the changes made over the course of a project — if a change resulted in a bug, there was no way to trace where it originated or determine how to fix it.
Source code management solves these problems by tracking each developer’s changes, highlighting conflicts and preventing code overwriting. Developers are alerted to any conflicts so they can address them before they are merged into the source code and potentially compromise the application.
In the sections that follow, we’ll take a closer look at how source code management works, what benefits it brings to software development, and which best practices to follow to get the most out of the process.
What Is Source Code Management: Contents
How does source code management work?
What are the benefits of source code management?
What is the role of version control?
What is a source code management system?
What is source code management in the DevOps lifecycle?
What are best practices for source code management?
The Bottom Line: Source code management is essential for modern software development
The heart of the source code management process is the code repository, a centralized server that stores all of an organization’s code as well as the source code management system that tracks code changes for various development projects.
Copies of source code are stored as individual files. Developers “check out” a file when they want to make code revisions and receive a copy of that file in their local environment. At the same time, the original file in the repository is locked so that no one else can check out that piece of code and inadvertently overwrite the current developer’s changes. After the developer makes and tests their changes, they “commit” them, saving the revised code to the repository. This replaces the original file, increments the code version number — a process called “version control” — and removes the lock.
The process is repeated every time another developer makes code changes to any file. The source code management system then stores and manages all revisions to maintain a complete history of each piece of code.
Regardless of tools, source code management uses an array of common terms, including the following:
Source code management offers many benefits, including:
Version control is a revision control system designed to track changes to code over time. The term is often used interchangeably with source code management.
Version control is managed with version control software that tracks every code change in a special type of database. When developers save changes made to a file, the system retains — rather than overwrites — all the changes from every previous version of that file.
Maintaining a versioned record of all code changes in this way offers several benefits:
As part of the branch strategy, there are two types of version control systems: centralized and distributed.
Each type of version control system has advantages and disadvantages. Centralized version control is simpler to set up, less complex and easier to learn than distributed version control. It’s also easier to control access because code is stored on a single server. Performance is generally faster in distributed version control systems because you don’t have to be connected to the network, which potentially slows connections. You also don’t have to wait for locks to clear to access the code because the complete codebase is already on your local system. And if the main server goes down in a distributed version control system, you still have the complete code history saved and stored locally to serve as a backup.
A source code management system is a software tool (e.g., Bitbucket, IBM Rational Clearcase or open source tools such as Github and Apache Subversion) that coordinate a software development team’s coding work. It may also be called a “version control system” or a “source control system.”
The main function of a source code management system is to provide file and configuration management and version control capabilities to ensure development teams are always working with the latest code, and to prevent them from overwriting each other’s code changes. These tools also enable developers to work on code in parallel and merge their changes together, track and review requested changes, monitor bug fixes and perform releases.
There are many available source code management tools and systems on the market. The type and number of features best for you will depend entirely on your organization’s size, resources and needs.
Source code management plays a pivotal role in the DevOps lifecycle, which makes it important to understand the lifecycle as a whole. Many modern source code systems now include CI/CD capabilities such as Github actions, Gitlab pipelines and Microsoft's Azure DevOps server.
The DevOps lifecycle consists of seven phases that bring structure and continuity to software development projects. Here’s a closer look at each.
To get the most out of source code management, it’s important to follow a few best practices:
As projects and the size of their respective codebases grow in number and complexity, source code management is becoming a crucial tool for software development teams. Modifying the wrong version of an app — or worse, releasing it with bugs you were supposed to fix — carries heavy costs in the form of lost time, money and customer loyalty. Source code management is easy to implement, and if done effectively, can accelerate your development process, increase team productivity and improve the quality of your product.