A solo developer can keep their files on their machine, but that does not work for software teams. After all, you have multiple versions to use: test versions, old production versions and more. How do you keep it all straight? You use Git Hosting. Or better yet, Plesk for Git Hosting.
Using a git repository is powerful, but it is not a silver bullet for your company. If you have other needs like project management, then arranging Git Hosting may not be your top priority. Let’s break down some of the problems you might have and how using Git Hosting can help.
What issues are withholding your development?
Every development team has problems. It could be that you are struggling to scale up. Alternatively, maybe you are fighting to maintain integrations with dozens of partners. Consulting oriented organizations may be concerned with client management issues. Git Hosting will help with some of these problems, but not all.
Identify your top problems
Coming up with a list of your development problems is easy. Use the following methods to come up with a list in less than an hour:
- Tickets. What are the themes you see in tickets escalated to development?
- Feature requests. What themes stand out in these requests?
- Management comments and goals. Some management goals – like launching a new smartphone app – will have implications for the development team.
- Team meeting themes. Think back to the last 3-5 team meetings you’ve had. What problems keep coming up again and again?
Once you have your list in hand, rank the problems regarding which are most urgent and valuable to solve.
What problems can Git Hosting solve?
In our experience, using Git helps solve a few common development problems:
- Roll back your code. It’s easy for vandals to mess around with Wikipedia pages. However, they don’t make much of an impact because you can “roll back” in a single click – the same benefit just by using Git Hosting.
- You can work offline. You don’t need a constant server connection to get work done. Hopefully, Internet service isn’t a big problem, but offline support is helpful nonetheless.
- Support for experimentation. If somebody on your team has an idea for a killer feature, what do you do? Time permitting, let them develop the idea on their own branch, separate from the main code. You can get the benefit of supporting innovation without threatening your core product.
- Support distributed development. The days of having all of your developers sitting side by side are gone. If you want to work seamlessly with a distributed team, you need distributed tools to support them. Git makes it easy for each developer to get their work done. Then you can decide how and when to release new changes.
If your organization is struggling with other problems like readjusting after an acquisition, Git Hosting may not be your number one priority.
Decide on whether to pursue Git now or later
If your team is working on a rapidly changing product and has geographically distributed developers, you need Git. The question becomes how you should implement it?
Choose your Git option: remote or local
Let’s break down two ways git support works for web developers: a local repository and remote Git Hosting. Both have their place in development. The trick is knowing when to use which.
When to use a local repository?
As a developer, you have big ideas and the development tools to bring them to life. If you like, you can be like a mad scientist like Doc Brown in “Back To The Future” coming up with world-changing inventions:
There’s just one problem with coming up with new ideas. You don’t want to get criticized for pushing out half-baked ideas. That is where a local repository comes in.
It’s your private lab for coming up with new ideas. Maybe you’ll code your realistic version of the time-traveling car. With a local repository, you can keep your ideas private until you decide to share them.
When to use a remote repository?
Unlike local repositories, remote repositories are great for collaboration with your team. We recommend using repositories for your main production work.
If you have a lot of feature requests to manage and a remote team of developers, we recommend using a remote repository. It’s just the way that modern development works.
Tip: Remote work does not just mean working with experts around the world. If you have to collaborate with other divisions of your company, supporting remote work is a smart decision.
Now let’s look at how using Plesk for Git Hosting makes it easier to keep your repositories organized.
How Plesk for Git Hosting speeds up web development
The creative work of shipping a new website takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. When you are a few hours away from launch day, you just want to hit a button and call it a day. That’s where the Plesk Git extension comes in.
If you already have BitBucket or GitHub implemented, you can keep using them – our extension is built to support those tools. For managers, support for multiple branches means you can separate out production code from other code. That means no more embarrassing mistakes of publishing “lorem ipsum” code to the world. Yup, enter Plesk for Git Hosting.
Do you want to shave time off your web changes without sacrificing quality?
Or find out more about Gitman – When Plesk meets Git.
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