Spent 6 months building a web app before I realized I wasn't even using version control

Ngl, I was just saving copies of my files as 'final_v2', 'final_v3_actual', 'final_v4_forreal' in folders on my desktop. Then my laptop crashed and I lost like 3 weeks of work. A buddy from a local meetup in Austin saw me doing that and just stared at me. He asked 'where's your git repo?' and I had no clue what he meant. That's when it hit me that I had been coding completely wrong the whole time. Anyone else have a moment where a friend called out something obvious you were missing?

2 comments

2 Comments

miamitchell1mo ago

Read a thread where someone called git "save points for code." Changed everything for me.

blair_dixon1mo ago

That's a solid way to put it, @miamitchell. I've been using git for years and I still see people get lost in the weeds of all the commands. Calling them "save points" is a good way to get the basic idea across to someone new. It also makes it easy to explain why you don't just have one giant save point at the end of the day. You'd think it was a high score in an old video game the way some people treat it.