!rant

So this has probably been asked loads of times but I've never seen it. When working on solo projects for yourself do you still use source control like git or mercurial?

I usually don't because when I do personal projects its usually filthy and fast development to prototype quickly.

However, this current project I'm working on I am using git and I'm finding that slowing myself down just to follow good practice is actually improving my code quality and my understanding of my own project.

I'm a designer and i usually don't know what i'm doing in code. GitKraken saved my ass many times because i was able to recover the shit i've done. 😄
And since git is built in to VS Code there is no excuse not to use it. The 3 minutes more time to set it up saves you more time and nerves in the long run.

I'm sure a lot of stuff started off as just a personal project. I could be wrong about this, but I'm fairly sure that Linus Torvalds wrote git as a personal thing, just something to use for the Linux kernel, because he was tired of the other version control systems being shit. Look at how big it is now.

I'd say to keep your solo projects in some kind of source control. Maybe someone will like your project and want to use it for themselves. Maybe your storage device will die and you lose all the code. Maybe you'll make a stupid mistake and lose all your code.

Like @heyheni said, it can save your ass if you fuck up.

No matter what the project I always using version control ( usually git), bcs it let me free when want to make some experiments, when it not worked as well as I intended but want to comeback to it later, I just branch it out and continue. And git already saved my ass several times when I make big changes and don't know what screws up in the process. So yeah.

@irene Did you forget to push some code? :P

Yes of course... It's not just a collaborative tool but a tool to literally save your ass and makes it much easier to view the changes etc.

@irene Yeah, but who uses only local repository anyway? Every dev I know uses either GitLab or BitBucket for their personal projects.

@hitzoR I'll answer this. Very paranoid people. I know a handful of Devs who are incredibly distrustful of cloud services because the cloud is just someone else's computer. They want to protect their intellectual property.

One of them still removes his harddrives and puts them in a safe before leaving the house

@irene 😂 not bad.

Seriously though, the same guy was trying to build a device that would drill 4 holes through the HDD at the press of a button. I don't know if he managed.

Maybe I should do a post on this one developer...

@tmpnull Wow, people like this must have really depressing life. 😅 I personally hate that paranoind kind of people, would not want to work with someone like that.

@irene @hitzoR right it's decided. Paranoid dev post in the making, after breakfast.

Personal projects are the best time to use best practises. Usually I version it in git and put it on gitlab. I would also provide a proper README for potential collaboration. Also, documentation would save my ass if I can't remember what I did.

I can't see a reason why I wouldn't use git. Writing well defined commits with good commit messages is a skill worth practising.

@irene actually thermite struggles to destroy a hard drive platter, unless you use a shitton of it. Turns out, those disks are *extremely* good at dissipating and reflecting heat.
Shaped charges might be a fun alternative though :D

Sauce video with fire and explosions: https://youtu.be/-bpX8YvNg6Y

@irene are you watching the video? Seriously, it's awesome 🤣

I use git for everything.

Even my English homework is checked in to git.