Subversion

Version tracking is something that I have yet to come across in my professional career, but something that has always seemed like such a no brainer and something I wished to add to my skill set.

After some research on Version tracking I decided that Subversion (SVN) seemed to be the best bet, as it is the most common and also open source.

There seemed to be a choice to make, host the repository on my local system, or use a hosted system. As I like offsite backups (and as a photographer have a hard drive full of images) I decided to go with a hosted system. The website svnhostingcomparison.com proved useful, it allows you to choose the features you want and filter the packages available on these features. Using this tool I decided to go for the free package from Assembla.

After having set up the server I needed to link it up with my code, Xcode, the Apple IDE I have been using for OSX and iOS development, has SVN support built in, which makes things easier as did the following tutorials:
http://maczealots.com/tutorials/xcode-svn/
http://www.uchidacoonga.com/?tag=assemblacom

I was set up fairly quickly and with the painless integration with Xcode I was able to import my existing projects, then due to the peculiar way SVN works check it straight out again and continue working on it. My next steps with SVN will be to link it in with Eclipse, although that may not be as simple as using it with Xcode.