Development tools and practices for Pythonistas

[Roy Smith]

In article 
<ad197191-042c-468a-9002-f449b633d375 at s4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,
 CM <cmpython at gmail.com> wrote:

> While we're on the topic, when should a lone developer bother to start
> using a VCS?

No need to use VCS at the very beginning of a project.  You can easily 
wait until you've written 10 or 20 lines of code :-)

> Should I bother to try a VCS?

Absolutely.  Even if you don't need it for a small one-person project, 
it's a good habit to get into.

If you haven't used any, my recommendation would be hg.  Partly because 
it's powerful, and partly because it's relatively easy to use.  The 
other popular choice these days would be git.  Hg and git are pretty 
similar, and between the two of them probably cover 90% of current 
usage.  Unless you've got a specific reason to try something else (i.e. 
a project you're interested in uses something else), those seem like the 
only two reasonable choices.