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Before version control was popular, what did large companies do?

by ryandetzel on 7/12/24, 12:02 PM with 8 comments

I was introduce to version control around 2003 (svn) and before that at small companies we would just ftp files around because we all worked on separate parts of the codebase. I didn't work at a large company (IBM, Microsoft, etc) but I'm really curious how companies with that many developers handled source control and conflicts before the likes of git and git[hub|lab] etc.

  • by uberman on 7/12/24, 12:09 PM

    There was several generations of source control before git came on the scene.

    Wikipedia has an overview here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control

  • by belter on 7/12/24, 12:06 PM

    CVS, Perforce (that I believe Google used for a long time or still does? ) and ClearCase. History did not start with Git :-)

  • by 082349872349872 on 7/12/24, 12:24 PM

  • by kstenerud on 7/12/24, 12:42 PM

    Version control coincided with programs being stored on tape as opposed to punched cards (the shift to tape was gradual over the 1960s, and the first VCS around 1969).

    So before version control came along, companies were only running programs small enough to fit on a deck of punched cards.

  • by taylodl on 7/12/24, 1:58 PM

    I've been developing software for a living for 40 years now and we've always had version control. Like many things in software, they've steadily improved, and Git is awesome.

  • by illuminant on 7/12/24, 2:48 PM

    Back in the early 2000s I zipped my development branches at the start of every day.

    somecode.20010405.zip somecode.20010406.zip ...

    There were version control systems available, they were only a pain to use (and more painful getting other devs to use them properly.) heck, I cannot get other devs to use git properly.