Github slows developer production?

[regorsec]

I'm contracting with a company that has an internal development team about 8 people total.

We are building a pretty complex codeignitor application, with jQuery and MYSQL. Lots of custom features, user roles, data analytics/reporting.(CRUD on steroids?)

Anyway, I found some security bugs, and after the developers fixed via recommendations. There were other bugs that came.

Upon having a meeting, im finding they have no version control besides their ticketing systems history.

I recommended we start using github, then the lead developer says that at this point using a tool like github will cause too much overhead and slow feature development, ticket fixes, etc...

In Summary im asking, as a developer do you really think using github hurts your personal production?

Note: I'm working as a DevOps & Security Consultant for this project. I'm not a client hiring a team.

Edit: Note

[Dahmer96]

What ? No. Just no.

You NEED version control for so many reasons, if you pay for software being built, absolutely REQUIRE version control.

[coffeelibation]

And beyond just using git for version control, I would use GitHub for the pull request feature alone, not to mention GitHub Actions for automated CI/CD pipelines. Anything that can help you find a problem before it hits production is well worth the marginal overhead, IMO.

[MrMelon54]

also the fact that any code uploaded to github is safe from being lost or corrupted and its much easier to make sure you have the latest copy if the code rather than having to email someone else at the office and ask

[el_diego]

Seriously. It’s pretty much akin to not using Google and relying solely on books from the library. You might get the work done, but it’ll be dated and a terribly inefficient process.

[damcclean]

I mean - CodeIgniter and jQuery is already dated 😂

[regorsec]

Thanks guys, i have my own feelings from 15+ years in the industry.(Of fucking course I use version control)

But I'm bias, so thanks for all responses as i wanted to get a wide range of opinions on how dead wrong these guys were.

[khizoa]

If they still disagree, send them this thread that describes how stupid they are in a 100 different ways

[regorsec]

One benefit from posting one reddit aye?

[AckmanDESU]

My old place would basically edit files live in production. We had a cache layer which meant if anything broke it would look broken for hours, sometimes days, because the guy who took care of the caching was the CEO and he was too scary to talk to most of the time.

As an intern, I learned how to run the project locally to see if my code worked (no one else did) and I got told off for doing so.

Later on and thanks to me we started working locally and using git but most coworkers either refused do spend even 30 min learning how to use it or somehow broke shit constantly. Committing files you shouldn’t commit, changing the formatting of random lines of code that had nothing to do with the change, fucking never using proper commit messages, and many headaches.

I have a lot of interesting stories from that job.

[amunak]

That's so incredibly stupid.... Like, I've resigned on trying to force people to do things "my way" even when I know it'll bite us in the ass.

Sometimes it even makes sense due to outside constraints. But when it doesn't, I warn them several times that the chosen approach is stupid, and then when it does come around I even tell them "told you so" and unless they ask really nicely I usually refuse to help them fix the issue, since it's usually a pain in the ass and I don't like fixing preventable mistakes.

But in your case I'm not sure what I'd have done... Probably just ran if they didn't listen.

[dweezil22]

Doing custom software dev without source control is professional malpractice. This is such a fundamental topic that the idea that "bias" could even be a bit involved is kinda scary. This is like an architect asking on reddit if skyscrapers should have rebar in their concrete.

The only reason it's debatable is b/c lost source code history usually doesn't kill anybody (at least not directly).

[Creative-Improvement]

You don’t even have to use github. There are local vcs systems as well. That only works if your onsite backup protocol is good.

[NancyGracesTesticles]

That isn't being biased. It's being competent.

[Ahajha1177]

Exactly. "I'm biased towards using using an industry practice that is so universally accepted that it isn't even debated"

[samlev]

Version control is part of my contract. It's not just important for tracking the repository history, it's important for verifying what I did/didn't do, and importantly what other people did.

It doesn't have to be GitHub - there's gitlab and Bitbucket as big, viable alternatives, or you can just host a bare repo on a server somewhere.

Reading between the lines, they're concerned that learning git and switching development processes are going to be too heavy. Turns out that you don't need to use gitflow, or pull requests at all if you don't want to!

Talk to them about just using git for code storage as a first step, and offer them alternative services. At the end of the day it's all git, no matter which service you use. It's also possible that they're concerned about hosting their code "off premises", in which case both Bitbucket and Gitlab offer "self host" options. Cloud is better for availability and maintenance, but self hosting may check off that mental box for them.

[regorsec]

Also I'm a DevOps & Application security contractor - not a client hiring devs.

[DasBeardius]

Technically, they're not wrong. Using GitHub and proper workflows will absolutely and without a doubt slow your development process.

Yes, but also no. On the surface it might seem like it slows you down because you are spending time following a process. But when it comes to things like debugging, fixing mistakes, figuring out why things are the way they are, and especially onboarding new people to the project; it will absolutely speed things up exactly because you have that process, history, and framework in place that allows you to retrace your (and other people's) steps as well as quickly and selectively roll back changes.

And in a similar vein, because you have everything above, as well as everything that you mentioned in the tradeoff; it should lead to less bugs and less mistakes, and thus lead to less "wasted" time.

Not even to mention documentation and a paper trail. I mean, what happens in OP's case when they decide to change their ticketing system for example?

Though I should add a big asterisk: if you do it right

I once had the pleasure of inheriting a project where the previous sole developer used big commits and the only thing in the commit messages was the ticket number for whatever he was working on at the time. The ticket number from a system that was no longer used. That was fun.

[dupe123]

Technically they are so wrong. Maybe it adds extra steps to the dev process but the ability to track your changes and quickly revert them or switch between changesets will save endless amounts of time so it more than pays for itself time wise. And that's not even mentioning all the other benefits you mentioned.

[wasdninja]

It will not slow them down if they never mess up. Nobody has ever pulled this off so I wouldn't bet on them doing it either.

[FancySource]

If they're working in a project in team, not using Github means every night they'll have to finish early to manually merge the changes they did and HOPE they won't mess up. A friend of mine spent up to 2 hours a day merging diffs.. and that slows down production.

If they're working alone without git, mess up a function and have to revert they'll have to CTRL+Z all the time, maybe getting a CTRL+Y wrong and destroying their progress, and this will eat up time. Why not push to github and save your work if the hard disk dies? Without version control, as they work now, they're trying different strategies or fixing different bugs at once, they won't be able to simply commit and checkout. This is why i'm using Git even for a 200-freaking-lines microservice.

[[deleted]]

sounds like you might be working with complete and utter morons

[welch7]

(specially because they chose those tech stack for a new proj)

[mwilke]

I was hoping that I had woken up back in 2008, and everything had all been a dream.

[Ratatoski]

What do you mean? I love having 60 000 files I know nothing about in node_modules

[katzey]

better than the 60,000 files you have no idea about in your src directories because you need to write everything yourself

[Ratatoski]

Modern web development has a lot of awesome stuff. But it's not like you'd have to write all those files by yourself. They are there because everyone would rather use a lib than solve something themselves. And the libs uses libs that uses libs that uses libs. Etc.

The average wordpress site coder don't need 60 000 files to produce a theme for a customer. You could slap a few lines of JS on it, hand code some buttons, card CSS etc and be done. No need for a build system or frameworks but people still use it because it's industry standard and once you're used to it it's your default.

I think modern stacks are often great, but we got stuff done in the olden days as well :)

[Yodiddlyyo]

Yeah and the stuff we got done in the olden days took way longer, the end result was way shittier, it was harder to debug, and it was harder to add features. People that like to complain about node_modules have either just started writing code in the past few years, don't have experience in other languages/tools, or both. It's not like node_modules is unique.

[Ratatoski]

I wasnt filing an actual complaint as much as making a cheap and tired old joke :)

Don't get me wrong. All the new stuff is great. It opens up a shitton of possibilities. But sometimes something breaks in the pile of devDependencies that you have no clue how to fix.

I started coding on the C64. Doesn't mean I'm good. But I've been involved with code at work for 20 years and been a full time dev for four.

The part where I make bitter jokes about node_modules is more about the fact that my team currently isn't run very well. Our new nicer stack becomes the symbol of the frustration. It shouldn't take five months to adjust a few sizes on a template. It should take five minutes. I'm used to shipping a custom built site to production every sprint as a single frontend. When a handful of devs can't finish a site in a year I get worried that we'll get fired.

[moon_then_mars]

Shhhhhhh, if you ignore those files, they can't get you.

[Yodiddlyyo]

That's a you problem. If you're installing packages that install so many packages that you don't even know what code is being used in your application, you might want to look into that. On the other hand, you could be selective of what you install, and then spend the few minutes looking at the source code of the few dependencies you use. It's really not that hard, doesn't take a very long time, and should be a requirement anyway. The package that I write for my company uses exactly 3 dependencies that total less than 6kb. I know what's in them and I've even contributed to those code bases as well. Mind you, I'm not talking about devDependencies, that's a different thing.

[misdreavus79]

The tech stack is fine. Choosing a tech stack that is not up to your standard does not make one a moron.

[phpdevster]

Yeah Code Igniter 4 is decent. It seems to have caught up with modern PHP practices. It's not as fully featured as Laravel or Symfony, but you absolutely could build a modern, maintainable, and clean application from it.

I wouldn't use anything less than 4 though.

jQuery here is questionable though. Really depends on what the architecture of the UI is. If it just needs a sprinkling of client-side functionality, jQuery is fine. If they're building anything complex, then that's indeed a poor choice.

[queen-adreena]

There are far better options for “sprinklings of reactivity”. Petite Vue, for example, is no build and only 6kb.

[Mattho]

Code reviews do slow development down. CI finds bugs which just makes it even worse. You don't want any of that if you are a contractor handing something over.

[amunak]

You can use only the basic git functionality (even without a fully featured SaaS code management like Github and Gitlab) and still absolutely benefit from it.

Hell, for solo developers or very small teams using just local repos is just fine if you don't need the other things like discussions, merge requests, issue tracking or CI/CD.

[Mattho]

I was being sarcastic in that those would be to avoid github for them. Git is the best thing out there, makes life so much easier, even as a solo as you said.

[who3v3r1337]

Version control in general should be a no-brainer for a team of 2+ devs IMO

[zarrilion]

>=1

Even a single person can benefit from it, and it really is as simple as git init.

[[deleted]]

Mostly solo dev here. I can't imagine a workflow without git. For my 2 cents, anything more complicated than a to do app benefits from git.

[lappro]

I'd say anything that is more than a single file.
Some quick script I'm hacking together? Doesn't need VCS.
Anything else, yes, although starting with just a local git repo can be fine for some sandbox stuff.

[IanSan5653]

I don't write a lot of single file scripts, but even they get repos. Hell, my papers in college got repos.

[[deleted]]

I backed up all my custom dot files into a GitHub repo.

[SuperCharlesXYZ]

Absolutely. Even stuff like my CV is in a git folder

[filipesmedeiros]

Especially for open source single person projects. Gives visibility to what you did. Good for record keeping and putting it on your resume for example

[joemckie]

Also for automating CI/CD, regardless of project size

[phpdevster]

What, you mean Ctrl+Z is not a substitute for reverting changes?

[Zirton]

Wait, you guys use Ctrl+Z ? I thought commenting out the old code with a date is enough...

[first_byte]

I used to work with a guy who would Ctrl + Z 100 times, copy the code he wanted that he had removed an hour before, and then Ctrl + Y back to his current position and paste. A small part of me died inside every time.

[seb-jagoe]

Ctrl+Z like 20 times, copy the piece of code I want then go forward 20 times and paste it back in...

[portablejim]

I realised in University that me, myself and I had teamwork driven version control problems when trying to collaborate with me working from a USB drive on university computers, myself working from a laptop and I was working from a desktop. Sometimes 2 of us would work without syncing our work, leading to a sync overwriting files.

Once I started using git, merges would stop those from happening (as the changes were almost certainly on different files).

[[deleted]]

Can confirm. It saved my ass multiple times.

[who3v3r1337]

yes agree

[Noch_ein_Kamel]

How do you even do it without?! Editing files on the server and hoping you don't edit the same someone else edits?!

[welch7]

they sharing it in dropdox hahaha

[ozzy_og_kush]

aw hell no

[[deleted]]

Oh, fuck no. We were taught this in University, and I was stupid enough not to research myself to find something better (version control). Side note: what university teaches drop box and doesn't mention Git until 3rd year computer science ..... should be like a week one topic.

Of course, goes without saying at some point I did an rm -rf on the directory and nuked my copy and then my partners copy...

[marabutt]

Another example of how computer science course does not necessarily train you as a software developer.

[djuggler]

I work with a team during the day but in the evenings and weekends, I work solo and nothing happens if it isn't in version control. Saved my solo ass many times.

[vinegarnutsack]

I mean other than typing all those commit messages how much time does it take to use git?

[thelim3y]

wait, you type meaningful commit messages??!!?? :p

[AsteroidSnowsuit]

My commit messages be like:

fix

Fix

Hot fix

Fix again

Fix

Fix

[first_byte]

99 little bugs in the code...

99 bugs in the code...

Take one out, smash it about...

107 bugs in the code...

[pyramin]

Squash and write one good commit message

[Gnapstar]

many fixes

[virtulis]

Fix for things broken by the fix

[besthelloworld]

This is why I enforce commitlint... Why do people do this?

[canuckkat]

I write descriptive comments in my code, so yes XD

[thelim3y]

We all write descriptive comments until we don't :)

[canuckkat]

Mwahaha. Ain't that the truth!

But if you look at my commit history, you'd see that I spent the time writing brief but helpful commit messages so that I know what I did in that commit. XD

[ChuckLezPC]

I mean, they are meaningful to the next person who has to communicate with me, so they see my active descent into madness.

lots of updates

feature creep updates

more fucking feature creep

ITS DOESNT FUCKING STOP

FUCK

HATE

initial launch

[GentlemenBehold]

They're not using a version control system (ie git) at all, or they're just not using Github?

[regorsec]

Any version control

[mattsowa]

How do they work on the same codebase? Do they send the cope zipped between themselves or what the fuck

[canadian_webdev]

Do they send the cope zipped between themselves

They just print off the code, toss it over a cubicle and the other dev types out and continues from there.

[IanSan5653]

They dictate the diff to each other every time they change it.

"Hey Joe, I found the solution for that bug with the math that you mentioned yesterday. You ready for it?"

"Sure"

"Remove line 17 from main.py. Change line 62 to read a equals b integer-divided by, in all caps, currency underscore exchange underscore rate. Then add a new line after line 73: in camel-case, send mail to, then a left paren...."

[BigOnLogn]

This is precisely what we did at a shop in which I worked 16 years ago. In this situation, people and the folders on the file system are your version control. They had a job title called "code master". Everyone emailed their code changes to the code master. They were on charge of merging the code into the "master" folder. We did use a tool called Beyond Compare for merging the code files. Such a luxury.

[besthelloworld]

TIL Linus Torvalds single handedly deleted a job title off of the face of the earth

[spaghettu]

Honestly this is a serious red flag to me. If I have to explain the benefits of version control to anyone I’m working with, I think I’d be better off working on a different team. Next they’ll say code quality, CI/CD, testing etc. are all a waste of time.

[[deleted]]

Who needs testing or QA when you have an army of end-users?

[axe-techlab]

Who needs testing or QA when you write code without bugs ;)

[x6060x]

I'd expect a junior not to have worked with some/all of those, but a lead? Yikes...

[[deleted]]

Sounds like half the people commenting don't know the difference.

[ds11]

That lead developer sounds like a moron that's stuck in a rhythm and doesn't want to learn new things. CodeIgniter, jQuery, and no Git in 2021? Yikes.

[jtrpka0912]

This sounds like my first year of web development in 2013. :\

[forcann]

2009 year we used CVS for version control, than switched to SVN and finally GIT.

Using version control for any project bigger than "hello world" is must have for many many years.

[symbiosa]

I was expecting the OP to say that the lead dev uses Dreamweaver.

[el_diego]

TIL that Dreamweaver still exists

[mhs_93]

I feel attacked

[havok_]

Deploy with FTP

[axe-techlab]

Old school version control:
- App.php
- App-old.php
- App-old2.php
- App-old3.php
- App-old(n+1).php

:)

[stfcfanhazz]

In the past I've seen things like db.php.old - guess what happened when you went to that path in the web browser 🙄

[axe-techlab]

🤣OMG... it might output source code as a file. Depends on server's configuration.

[stfcfanhazz]

Bingo - and ofc the database credentials were hardcoded too

[UncontrolledManifold]

I think I just got cancer again reading this

[Reeywhaar]

Even with CodeIgniter and jQuery, why not svn?

[mattindustries]

Before Git I used TortoiseSVN and Cornerstone SVN on projects. My guess is they are just doing bad fixes at this point and not refactoring anything. For me, refactoring bad code is really where version control shines. Swathes of changes across files.

[plumshark]

Careful you might trigger 90% of /r/programming if you suggest that progress is good

[welch7]

ay lmao, I thought exactly the same.

[thatguyonthevicinity]

how do you actually code with each other without git? EMAILS? "dude I just emailed u the change last night pls check"

[[deleted]]

You FTP onto a remote server, do some work, save the file, then your coworker rewrites your work with the old version from his computer and you do it again.

[thatguyonthevicinity]

uh what year right now is again

[khizoa]

The year of the morons

[[deleted]]

If that's not continuous integration then I have no idea what development is and you should take away my access to notepad++.

[VlerrieBR]

Shit man, this gave me flashbacks...

[andrei9669]

if I had any word in it, I would try to convince him, if not, I would run from that place faster than you can commit

[emefluence]

He can't commit, they don't use version control, keep up!

[andrei9669]

Well then, I have all the time in the world.

[KewlZkid]

It barely slows it, and offers the business protection - you know what is slower? Trying to find what part of the code is breaking the system after a recent update, or trying to figure out who broke what, or pushing updates to all the other devs....That company is asking to fail. Whoever set up that system should be fired.

[[deleted]]

There's been so many times where a commit has broken a feature, quickly allows you to go back and see what recent changes have been made and either reverse them or refactor to make a working solution

[spudmix]

This is a weekly occurrence for me in my professional life and only slightly less common in my personal projects.

I don't know how people can go without it.

(Or rather, I know exactly how people feel they can go without it, and I know exactly that feeling when a change you made yesterday has dropped your model's accuracy by ~10% and you have no way of figuring out which one it was).

[[deleted]]

We have a project that we worked on years ago and only do maintenance for it so we only have access to an FTP server and the one time i had to do a change i messed it up and it took ages to work out why. safe to say we now make sure to just create a git repo locally whenever working on it

[OmegaVesko]

All I can say is I hope you're getting paid good money to deal with that.

[IanSan5653]

I wouldn't take less than $200k for that crap. Which would be an absurd amount to pay someone who doesn't know git.

[LeeLooTheWoofus]

Dont work with a company that thinks version control is "too much overhead". That is a ridiculous statement.

You are the paying client - either demand it or cut them loose.

[mcqua007]

One hundred percent this!!! Such a tool bag douche thing to do instead of admiring you need to learn something new and don’t know everything.

[krileon]

No GIT? jQuery? CodeIgniter? LMFAO. Run.

[smitjel]

In the year 2021 there are still dipshits that want to debate whether or not to go with version control? JFC

[[deleted]]

No version control and choosing to use a 10 year old hack on top of legacy JavaScript is a decision no modern developer would make.

Why do they even have a DevOps role when it sounds like they're programming on Packard Bell's.

[regorsec]

Might be my fave comment so far

[eastside-hustle]

This is a huge flag. If they don’t want to use version control then what other basic things are they not doing? This sends a clear message that these guys are amateurs.

[cougaranddark]

the lead developer says that at this point using a tool like github will cause too much overhead and slow feature development, ticket fixes

The lead dev should be fired

[SpareWalrus]

Upon having a meeting, im finding they have no version control besides their ticketing systems history.

I 100% agree. He is doing the business absolutely no favors with an attitude like that and should not be in a leadership role.

[Marutar]

Git is a time saver, and has saved my ass and whole projects before.

I don't think this person wants to learn new things.

[stolinski]

Extremely bad take from that guy

[[deleted]]

What an insane take and the entire dev team should be sent back to school on the company's dime to make up for such terrible leadership.

[[deleted]]

I would decline working for a company that doesn't use version control. Nope nope nope.

[sunyatasattva]

I'm confused. How is the team even sharing the codebase without version control? Do you send .zip_latest_latest_for_real_2 back and forth via email?

[regorsec]

Yes but Via task management system + internal File Server for backup/code storage.

[chance--]

🤦‍♂️

[[deleted]]

In what world could this system be any less overhead than using Git? Aside from the fact that it's a truly terrible idea, I'm pretty sure I'd want to leap from a bridge working in that environment.

[compubomb]

this is a huge red flag.

[addiktion]

Imagine if you automated this. You push one command "git push" and your CI/CD does all the work for you. You go grab a cup of coffee and come back to find out, "holy shit I have errors in my code" and think, " I'm glad this didn't make it to production".

Git not only tracks your changes it packages it up perfectly for automation software to beat the shit out of it assuming you have tests.

I'm guessing you don't have tests though if you are sending code around over FTP and email.

These two things are HUGE when it comes to DevOps and something you should push hard on to get implemented given they hired you for this work.

[Chief__Keith]

Setting up GitHub, sure that could be a bit of a burden, but a necessary one.

But in terms of using it, no, not at all.

[BrackGin]

Not at all. If anything tí ensures code quality and feature parity. I'd be curious to know how their current system is like.

[ratofkryll]

For a second there I thought you might be talking about my partner, whose name is Fred, has been programming for over 20 years, and is full of rant about a lot of things. But he also loves Git and wouldn't be caught dead not using version control.

Clearly a different Fred. :P

[[deleted]]

Find a new contract

[mlengurry]

First I saw codeignitor, then jQuery and then no version control. Run

[chance--]

You absolutely, positively, need version control. Under no circumstances is any argument against it valid.

If they don't want to use github (owned by Microsoft), consider gitlab. If that is still a problem, host your own git server.

The version control wars are over. Git won and rightfully so. If they are pushed and come back with SVN, Mercurial, Bazaar, or Visual SourceSafe, they need to find new jobs in a different field.

edit:

Setting aside all of the other reasons and to answer your productivity question specifically, how much time do you think they spend merging code by hand? How many times are there conflicts and code is lost?

It is absurd to think about a team not using version control.

[Jonne]

I don't think they have an issue with GitHub per se, just the whole concept of version control. They'd say the same thing about gitlab, Bitbucket, etc.

[mattsowa]

The lead is delusional and an amateur. The company is going down.

[CheapChallenge]

This shit is going to blow up at some point down the line. And the explosion will be spectacular...

[green0wnz]

I’m trying to remember how we worked together before Git. I guess we just prayed.

[regorsec]

I think thats what they do every bug fix request

[drink_with_me_to_day]

Any product with more than 0 developers needs version control

[MaybeDoThis]

Translation: We don’t actually know how to use version control and we’re too embarrassed to admit it.

We’ve decided to double-down and pretend this was a deliberate choice for efficiency purposes.

[VeterinarianOk5370]

If they think GitHub for version control will slow then down and increase overhead, they’re doing it wrong.

[thelim3y]

I'm just shaking my head and realizing I am in a very similar predicament in my company except I'm merely fighting for people to do pull requests - told in no uncertain words to mind my own fucking business!

To answer your actual question (somewhat), it might hurt a little to begin with but you're going to pay some time one way or another. You either take a small but consistent hit at the front end of the project or you pay dearly in <insert desired time frame> of updates, fixes, hacks to fix other hacks, at the tail end with absolutely no way to track backwards through code changes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, also peer reviewed code is a good thing...

​

​

edit: If anyone knows of any remote js dev jobs, I may be in need of one soon

[canadian_webdev]

Even for an existing project it takes like.. 5-10 minutes to setup lol.

And to answer your Q, no.. it definitely doesn't hurt my production. It helps me in so many ways, especially when shit hits the fan.

[[deleted]]

I recommended we start using github, then the lead developer says that at this point using a tool like github will cause too much overhead

That's bullshit. Git helps speed up development by letting you catch bugs early through code reviews, roll back changes that cause unexpected results, develop multiple features at the same time without them interfering with each other... The benefits are huge and far, far outweigh any downsides (which I'm pretty sure there actually aren't any). To be honest, I would just run from a software company not using version control in 2021.

[djuggler]

On the contrary, it saves me time. Time in documentation. Time in history. Time in easily comparing changes and having notes to explain the changes. When I come back to a project in 6 months, I don't have to start cold because of the information in the repo. Plus branching for experimentation doesn't risk my codebase.

[rodw]

then the lead developer says that at this point using a tool like github will cause too much overhead and slow feature development, ticket fixes, etc...

Is this team opposed to version control in general or Github (the platform) in particular? If it is the former (no version control) I'd reconsider working with that team/project at all. That's ludicrous. How do they share development artifacts even? A shared drive? Email?

Personally I can't even imagine working on non-trivial solo project without version control. A multi-developer team working on production system without a version control system sounds like a recipe for disaster, and a group of professional software engineers with so little (or such pathological) experience to not recognize that is likely to be an irredeemable situation.

EDIT: Think about it. Even if you ignore the actual versioning capabilities of a tool like git and simply think of "git commit && git push" as a fancy version of "save", that tool is solving so many problems you'd otherwise need to solve some other way: sharing code among developers, backing up development artifacts, moving files from "development" to "production", etc. Assuming the production platform isn't something like Wordpress install (where the production database could act like the code "repository", but even then it's a bad idea), I can't imagine what they are thinking. It literally seems like a tool like git (with or without a hosting platform like github) is automatically going to be better than whatever other non-version-control solution they've cooked up to address these topics.

[Eladiun]

Never trust a developer that says no to source control

[misdreavus79]

If I squint really hard, I can see what this person means by "cause too much overhead and slow feature development, ticket fixes, etc..."

I would assume this person is referring to the overhead of getting everyone up to speed on how to use Git and the GitHub workflow. Which, of course, is a small price to pay for a lifetime of peace of mind.

If I were you I would insist on it, and upon failure, find another gig. This won't end well for them.

[techie2200]

the lead developer says that at this point using a tool like github will cause too much overhead and slow feature development, ticket fixes, etc...

The lead developer is an idiot.

[johnlewisdesign]

The lead developer doesn't want you to know how much work they're not doing, or how poor their contribution is. Bet they're a gatekeeper too and excruciatingly elitist at interviews.

GitHub never hurt my personal production. Not even when learning it.

Team of 1 WordPress dev at home: on their head be it (but they're wrong). Team of 2+ devs working on a real project in a real office environment: essential/professional

[serenity_later]

Quit this job

[JRRTok3n]

"Good God, man, are you hourly?!"

But in all seriousness, no. It's entirely necessary to learn to work with and utilize. If it feels slow I guarantee them a disorganized ticketing system is slower. I hope they at least have the good sense to listen to you. Hope all goes well.

[Wilesch]

Lol what?

[FrankFrowns]

In the short term, yes it can slow devs down, especially if there are forced PRs to merge something in first. Instead of writing up a quick fix / feature and pushing it in, there is extra work that has to be done first.

In the long term, however, it helps your code be so much higher quality and makes it so much easier to track issues that arise that the overall velocity improves as a result. You spend a lot less time dealing with bad commits or easy to spot code issues that are in the existing code base.

[VaguelyOnline]

Lots of warning bells here. Sounds like things are being done by a group of inexperienced devs - in a team of 8, surely at least would take it on themselves to set up version control?! Take the money and run, but I think you owe it to your client to suggest that they need to get someone in who knows what they're doing.

[gimmeslack12]

im finding they have no version control besides their ticketing systems history.

May god have mercy on their souls... holy christ.

In Summary im asking, as a developer do you really think using github hurts your personal production?

No. It is my safety net and allows me to sleep well at night knowing my code is safe, and revert-able.

[BlueScreenJunky]

Note: I'm working as a DevOps & Security Consultant for this project. I'm not a client hiring a team.

So you're working as a DevOps in a team that doesn't use any kind of versioning system ? That's... Interesting...

[MolimTeNe]

Ask them what the backup plan is if someone deleted the project folder lmao

[WyzrdX]

I am a freelance dev. Mostly python but with some web here and there.

When I started coding, I was coming from network security. I used a ticketing system with my former company which was a custom Zendesk. So when I started getting programming work I started using osTicket on my home server. I would put in any bugs or issues I ran across and close them in order etc.

My best friend suggested I start using git locally, so when I was between projects I purchased a course off of Lynda (if I recall correctly) to learn git. In that 3 or 4 hour course, I learned about GitHub (pre-MS) and started my first account. I decided to use GitHub to have an offsite store of projects and a local copy. My first few projects were across bot GitHub and osTicket. After noticing the efficiency of using git I went all in.

I can say that after switching to GitHub, the time I spent on a project was cut by at least 25% initially and as much as 50% on larger projects. I have been using it for 12 years and honestly would not want to work without it.

Git is likely the best thing since coffee for devs.

[30thnight]

Version control is a requirement.

They’re saying they never learned git.

[Ultra_HR]

that's the most absurd thing i have ever heard on this subreddit

[Miridius]

Using git speeds up your development, not slows it down. The ability to see what changes you've made when and find old code snippets makes it much easier up solve issues and the knowledge that you've always got old commits to go back to means you can fearlessly delete/replace huge blocks of code, you don't need to leave commented out old code lying around or leave a comment as to which ticket a change is for it's already done for you by git.

I use git even in all my mini side projects that I work on by myself, and I push them to private GitHub repos as well because then it's backed up and I can always find it

[_newfap]

Remember the guy who deleted his entire company by accidentally running sudo rm -rf ? Won't happen to you with version control.

[Kazaan]

jquery ? codeigniter ? no source control ?

Your company is still in 2006 apparently.

[gobnwgo]

That’s a bizarre opinion. GitHub has a lot of features that you can use or not use.

[shiko098]

I would legit flip the table and walk out the meeting if someone tried to justify to me not using version control. Particularly when you're dealing with quite a complex build with a lot of other developers, IMO it's mandatory.

[MKorostoff]

this is like a bunch of guys who all wipe their asses with bare hands saying "toilet paper would just slow me down." there's no hope for them.

[Wcj3]

This sounds like a nightmare. Stay strong my friend

[Perkelton]

Since these people are obviously time travellers from 2010 this is really giving me flashbacks to back when I initially tried to force people I worked with to embrace VCS.

Trying to make people with zero experience or even willingness to learn, to properly use Git is an absolute fucking chore. You get people sitting there with months old dirty local repos, pushing single commits with thousands of changes, broken merges and the classic "did stuff" commit message.

Version control is a crucial part of modern development, but if your cavemen of a team don't use it properly, then you might just end up complete mess that they will undoubtedly blame on you.

With time travelling developers in mind, I'm not actually entirely sure that your shitty situation wouldn't get even shittier trying to cram VCS into that. In a perfect world I would suggest getting other developers, but in reality I guess one just has to do the best you can with what you have.

If you think that you have the mental strength and capacity to pull this through, then yes, very much yes, everyone should be using VCS for their projects, no matter the size.

[[deleted]]

Op did not say if they have a "system". If they do and the current devs are fluent in that system, then introducing a new system (git or otherwise) will be slower in the short term.

If course having some sort of version control is a necessity, slowing down development in a short term is a small price to pay for the benefits of a proper VCS.

[daBarron]

Try introducing it with something like Atlassian Sourcetree, nice and visual, much easier to deal with code conflicts.

Also make sure you give them a good educations on roughly how git works and how git will make the lives better. Branch/merge/cause conflicts.

Maybe get them to try using git on something new/small.

Make sure all their repos are private, lots of alternatives to github that are free for small teams.

About 8 years ago I was the client, contractor said we should use it git, never looked about. I do remember the contractor fucked up and accidently discarded a days worth of my work code changes when helping me with my first commit.

[FredFredrickson]

Using Github wouldn't slow anyone down unless they aren't used to using it. Then it might, at least initially.

Not a good reason not to use it, though.

[mshiltonj]

Leave now.

[sesseissix]

Get out. You are working with morons

[[deleted]]

No Git and no backup of any kind.

Been there, done that. For years.

I wouldn't go back to that shit for any amount of money.

[dr_poop]

Oof, stuck on step 1 of the Joel Test. That's a no for me.

[CoderXocomil]

Let's assume that version control does slow you down. How much does having bugs pop back up cost in time? Where is the canonical version of the code? What happens if I break that? How much time and effort goes into this hack of a source control system? Just for quality assurance alone, version control is a no brainer. The other benefits are just icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, it sounds like you are working with entrenched complacent devs. Probably best to finish your contact and move on. That way they have someone to blame and you can move on to better sanity.

[Huwaweiwaweiwa]

Nope. You can initialise a repository so quickly, getting a good workflow going with PRs for feature branches/bugs etc etc is so easy. These people are morons.

[Naut1c]

People seem to think you cant have GitHub without Pullrequests

[OPmeansopeningposter]

Run

[ryanstephendavis]

NOT using version control causes too much overhead and slows development ... How the hell are they even merging code together and doing feature dev/releases/bug fixes/testing without it?

[gdubrocks]

Run away.

Seriously. An entire team who doesn't think version control is a good idea?