As you develop software and make changes, add features, fix bugs, etc. it is often useful to have a mechanism to keep track of changes and to ensure that your code base and artifacts are well-protected by being stored on a reliable server (or multiple servers). This allows you access to historic versions of your application’s code in case something breaks or to “roll-back” to a previous version if a critical bug is found.

The solution is to use a revision control system that allows you to “check-in” changes to a code base. It keeps track of all changes and allows you to “branch” a code base into a separate copy so that you can develop features or enhancements in isolation of the main code base (often called the “trunk” in keeping with the tree metaphor). Once a branch is completed (and well-tested and reviewed), it can then be merged back into the main trunk and it becomes part of the project.