Looking to Incorporate Version Control after the fact

I'm doing a single developer Visual Studio solution and reached a point where I'd like to 开发者_如何学编程incorporate Versioning Control. Several posts address this issue, but one problem I'm facing is a large merge. I have a production copy of the solution and a beta copy. They are NOT dramatically different, but they will require a number of interactions I suspect. I'm using TortoiseSVN and have imported the production version.

Yes, I know I should have used Version Control from the start, but that is hind sight. Would it be best practice to simply use the beta as a reference and work the interations from scratch. Or should I branch off and import the beta separately, then attempt to merge the change. Or is there another alternative I'm missing.

Thanks, dgp

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well, I have experienced SVN in the past ... and I must say, it's lovely cause it's really easy to understand the concept, but it's awful terrible when things pass from the plain commit.

I'm currently using GIT (to host small code on GitHub) and Mercurial (Hg) (I use Kiln in the company - was recommended by myself so they can start using - and in BitBucket for personal use)

I have used SVN for more than a hole year and every time I need something from "the past" or to merge something, it was a nightmare, but the server/client concept was really a break deal and extremely easy to get it... but I found my self, over and over to do merging by hand :(

When GIT started to be hot, I was afraid to move as, dang! SVN was a pain, why should be different in a DVCS?

This videos rocked my world, [ part 1 part 2 ], only then I understood DVCS vs VCS and it was with this that I moved COMPLETELY to DVCS and never go back... proudly!

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For your problem, I would install git (or hg), and then create a repository on the folder you have your current source with:

git init will tell your folder, "Hey, I'm a GIT Repo"

git add . let's add all files and folders to be tracked by git

git commit -m "initial commit" let's save all the hard work :)

So, now you have a tracked code, you can simple create a branch and overwrite all your files. YES, worry not, you don't need to have copies of your code in a folder called branch ;) no more copies! all is in the GIT database

then, after creating the branch, changed the files, added all files to be tracked on that branch and committed, safely do a merge :)

ohh, and you don't need a server connection to do all this, all you need is a computer with GIT installed... no more connection dependencies! DVCS is cool or what?! :D