Three myths about version control

We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. A few things about version control that get repeated more often than they get checked.

Code gets read far more often than it gets written, and usually by someone with less context than the author had. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

“It only matters for big sites”

Small commits with clear messages are a gift to future you. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it.

“Our platform handles it”

If it is not in version control, it does not exist. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

What this looks like day to day

Most development decisions are really maintenance decisions wearing a different hat. Three things worth confirming about version control before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Branch naming conventions cost nothing and prevent confusion — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.