Easier and faster database development.
Version controling is a must-have for developers working with database systems.
Even if you think, that you don't care about anything we have mentioned, read on. You will see that you are wrong and that your database may be in great danger. You will also find out, that teamwork is essential in SQL-based solutions development.
Why do you need Source Control and Versioning?
First of all - we assume, that you might not have heard about it at all. That's why we will begin with a little bit of explanation. If you are familiar with source control concept, skip the following paragraph.
What Source Control and Versioning is?
Source Control is the generic term for tools that manage files in a
multi-developer or single-developer environment. Most source control tools work something like a
traditional public library, maintaining a central repository of files —
documents, programs, or any other files — in a location accessible to all
developers. In addition, source control tools include the ability to track the
changes that developers make to files and revert to earlier versions if
necessary.
Generally speaking, source control tools provide these features:
- Check out, check in
Developers check out a file by
downloading a copy from the central repository to their local computer before
modifying it. As a rule, while a file is checked out, other developers cannot
check it out or modify it, but they can usually view it by synchronizing, or
getting a read-only copy of it. When developers are done with a file, they can
check in their changes by checking in, or uploading, their local copy to the central
repository. As part of the file check-in process, most
source control tools prompt the developer to enter any comments about changes
made to the file.
- Change tracking
Source control systems keep track of
the changes made in a file when it's checked in. This allows developers to
reconstruct earlier versions of the file, which is useful for recovering earlier
work.
- Difference checking
Source control software allows
developers to compare versions of a file and review the differences between
them.
- History
Developers can examine the check-in history for
each file, including the comments made by each developer when checking in the
file.
What if my database is not under Source Control?
If your database is not versioned, there are several dangers awaiting to crash
your project when you are least expecting it:
- You cannot undelete removed database items other than using your backup and this task takes a lot of precious time. Assuming, that you had this object on backed up... But if you don't, or changed it after the backup has been created, there is no way to recover it. Unless you use source controling (version control) tool, you may lose thousands of dollars.
- A developer may make changes in, for example, a stored procedure code, save it to database and after a while he realizes, he made a terrible mistake, but without source control he cannot undo this change and revert to the last checked-in version. He has got to re-write all the lost code.
There are other reasons worth considering when talking about source control and versioning in database server.
- You cannot look at the history of the database object. With version control you may check, what did a, for example, trigger looked like and use it in your current development.
- You cannot track database schema and code changes.
- You cannot enable teamwork development.
So what can I do?
The importance of source control and versioning cannot be overestimated.
Why you should want to enable teamwork development?
By working with a team of developers, you can create applications faster, and
can develop more complex applications. You can blend the skills of different
developers to create applications that would be difficult or impossible for a
single developer to create.
However, team development requires extra effort in the development process.
Successful team development depends on:
- Allowing several developers to work with the same databases at the same time.
- Coordinating the changes that are made to the same database elements, so that one developer's changes don't overwrite those of
another developer.
For example, imagine that your team is developing a complex application.
Because the application is large, you must allow several developers to
be working at once on different components of the application. However, you want
to be sure that only one developer at a time works on an individual element,
such as a stored procedure or a trigger, so that one developer doesn't overwrite the changes made by
another developer.
A significant feature of database teamwork development is the use of a source code control system to coordinate who can access and modify items in a database.
An integrated SQL development enviroments for everyone
Version controling tool should also be integrated development enviroment, that itegrates all features mentioned above (source control, documentation and teamwork), allowing even more:
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