Describe how software helps interact with source control systems
A long time ago, working with the computer was staring at a screen with lines of text. Initially, computers didn't use a graphical interface. To interact with the computer, you entered commands from your keyboard at a prompt.
Now, computers, tablets, cell phones, and other electronic devices almost all have a graphical interface through which you can consume information and interact with the computer. As the computer interface shifted, so has the way that most people interact with and use computers.
Microsoft Word is a great example of an application that makes interacting with the work you're doing easier. With one application, you can:
- Copy and paste information.
- Apply formatting to text.
- Add and modify images.
- Control the entire layout.
Imagine trying to do all of that from a command line where you had to use the right commands, get the right syntax, and process everything in just the right order to get the desired output.
Thankfully, just as Microsoft Word helps people create, update, and maintain documents, there are similar tools for software development and version and source control.
There are some source control tools that are strictly built for source and version control. These tools help you fully interact with the source control platform using the graphic interface instead of the command line. That means if you needed to check in updated code, you could do that through a menu in the source control application. If you needed to roll back because some of the code broken application, you could do that through a graphic interface as well.
Integrated development environments
There are also applications called integrated development environments (IDE) that are focused on software development. An IDE will often have features and tools designed to complement a developers skill in different programming languages. With an IDE, a software developer may code more consistently and quicker. IDEs may also contain a set of debugging tools. Many of these IDEs also have the ability to interact with version and source control systems.
By using one of these IDEs, a developer can access the source code, make updates or modify the source code, and then check in the source code, all using the same application. We don't need to have one application to manage the source controls and version control side of things and then a separate application for the software development processes and tasks.
Because the source control applications are purpose built to work with the source control system, they may have better interfaces and capabilities than some of the IDEs.