[mtrawls]

As any decent, self-respecting programmer knows, version control is a very important bit of software development -- even moreso, perhaps, when applied to the competition setting, when time is of the essence. However, for whatever reasons, many a programmer often finds that it is at the end of his list of things to do (a list that does not always get completed, regrettably). But, as most things go in the programming world, we must re-learn the things we already know the hard way, before we really know them; inevetably, this means that experience, particularly the not-so-good variety, is a cruel, yet necessary master.

For my team in particular, last year's competition has become somewhat of a wake-up call in this regard, and we now are trying to do whatever we can to avoid this problem again. Further, the importance of version control has become underscored by the introduction of multiple developers this year. So, while it might be possible for a single person to keep in his mind the mangled and numerous ad hoc schemes of so-called "version control" that creep up when they are unplanned (and, indeed, all experience has shown otherwise), the problem becomes a serious one, for sure, when multiple persons are introduced into the development environment.

Further, I happen to be pretty sure that this is not a unique problem of my team; it seems to me, that other teams must have some experience with different version control systems. My question, therefore, is thus: What version control system do you implement (or recommend) and what problems have you faced with it in terms of usability, integration, and practicality for the FIRST competition environment?

Thank you,
Mark Rawls