Getting Started with Source Code Management (SCM) for Small Teams

• official history. Good for backups, accountability and security

• Security: Native subdirectory-level user access restrictions

• Branches are easy and stored centrally

• Gentlest learning curve for newbies, and operations like branching become quite intuitive as you progress

• Ability to lock files, ensuring that others don’t work on the same binary files assets like documents and media files simultaneously

• Widest adoption among developers

• History of changes can’t be modified

Cons

• Working offline means you can’t commit changes to the centralized repository until you have Internet connection, although this does not prevent developers from working on their local copies

• Generally slower than Git, since most operations need to synchronize with the central server, especially when merging large branches

• Possible to revise history and preserve only successes, not failur

Pros

• Decentralized model means many operations are faster and makes offline work more practical

• More merge options, which are generally faster than Subversion

• Branching is easier and faster

• Comes with many tools like ‘bisect’ that can partly automate the process of finding where a bug was introduced

Cons

• The local copy model means you need to be more careful of backing up your own workstations

• The large set of commands can be esoteric and present a steeper learning curve

• There is no file locking, which can cause issues with binary files

• History can be changed, and being able to edit past commits might not leave the strong paper-trail you’d prefer