I use git the - incredible, open-source, project-saving - version control every single time I code anything. In fact it’s often the first thing I do, which is why there are so many uncompleted projects over at my github.
It consistently amazes me how most, if not all of the (talented and clever) people I have computer science with at school aren’t using ANY kind of version control in their non-examined assessment (NEA) for the subject.
As someone who was self/internet taught to program (although I wouldn’t say that I am proficient), I encountered git very early on in youtube videos titled things like “Is this is the BEST version control” and “One best trick for software development” and began to use it, albeit badly.
TBH I still use it unperfectly, however I am a lot better, mostly because of The Odin Project, a free web-dev full-stack curriculum that taught me how to write good commits, to create branches and pull requests. I’ve linked them before and I’ll do it again because I think its both incredible and rare to find any organisation or community that provides teaching that good without any caveats or expectation of anything in return. Go check it out.
But back to git - what is it? It’s a type of software called version control, which is a very boring name for something that feels like magic. Essentially it allows you to “commit” versions of your code and return to them at any time. This allows you to make changes without being so scared of breaking things because you can go back - and you can see what changed between versions.
You can also make branches that allow development of multiple features on a codebase at the same time and forks to develop a different version of software based on the same starting point - really useful in open source software - amongst other wizardry.
So yeah, if you want to code then use git probably with with either github or gitlab as a server, although you could self host. Maybe I’ll try that one day.
I might make a post about my computer science NEA soon. As this post implies I have started it and I think it’s really interesting so stay tuned! (lol, I have no readers)