Thanks to the guys at Amkor (Rob Brooks-Bilson and Adam Crump). I had some background in working with CVS for version control.

So when the time came for me to pick a solution for our own internal use. we went with the successor to CVS - Subversion. I talked to a bunch of folks and they strongly recommended it as an easier to use and better featured system to use. The fact that it (and all the tools to work with it) are free was just a bonus!

Thankfully. my intern (Chris. you da man!) had some experience setting it up and since he had already configured our main development server I put him on the job. We worked out on paper how I wanted all our production servers to be configured so we could model our SVN repositories to be the same structure. I blinked. and BAM. we were all set.

I then loaded the Subclipse plugin into Eclipse and voila...I was working with a safety net!

Naturally. since we're just an enthusiastic bunch around here. we wanted to spread the word. One of our clients has been operating without any version control and relied entirely on backup tapes. That's no good.

So I documented what it would take to do a Subversion install/config and all the necessary dependencies/political issues that would have to be addressed. And then today Cameron Childress posted the text I could have used to make the case without writing it myself ;-)

Also. I proposed using CVSDude to host the Subversion repository so the server would be completely untouched by dirty developer fingers. Gary Houk actually recommended that to me.

Check it out...you need to have a safety net and this is a great way to do it!