Pascals Blog

A few weeks ago I was in the situation that most developers will know. You changed something in your code and suddenly - or worse, after a few other changes - everything is screwed up and you end up debugging your application, searching for this one tiny typo.

So, once again, I started thinking of setting up a version controll system. Thinking again, I recognized why all my other CVS or Subversion installations ended with one or two repositories, unused: It's the overhead. You have to set up, update and manage the version control software itself, deal with new users and check permissions now and then. Also, if you want things to be secure, you should use ssh for transport of your source, so you have to deal with all the public keys of your clients (or co-workers).

So I talked to Patrick at the agency for that I do lots of work and ask him which version control system he would prefer. He immediately answered "git". But even with distributed repositories, you want a "public" or central place where all the work comes together. You also want to keep meta information, such as tickets, documentation, downloads, ... at one place where everyone could easily find it.

You want github or Google Code. But having all your (closed) source hosted on Google is maybe not such a good idea. Long story short: the solution is a Google Code you can host yourself: InDefero.

InDefero has an incredibly clean layout and is thus powerful. It handles git, svn and hg repositories, which means that it creates them for you, tracks changes (and commit messages) and manages access via ssh. You, as a user, simply upload your ssh public key and start working. It also integrates a Wiki, a download center, an overview, code review and very easy and also fast admin panel. And I could go on.

As you might have noticed I'm pretty happy with InDefero and all my clients seem excited, not only because there are no more endles email threads about just one issue, but also they can see the progress of the project with one click.