Why does nobody talk about version control for solo projects

I spent about six months building a little weather app on my own last year. Never used Git or any version control because I figured it was only for teams working together on big codebases. Then one afternoon I made a tiny change to my main file, saved it, and immediately realized I had broken everything. I spent almost two hours trying to undo what I did, with no backup and no way to go back. That frustration finally pushed me to watch a beginner Git tutorial at 11 PM on a Wednesday night. Now I commit my code every 20 minutes or so, even if nobody else will ever see it. Has anyone else had that moment where they wished they started using version control way earlier?

4 comments

4 Comments

ray_williams7d ago

That exact thing happened to me with a Python script I'd been tweaking for weeks, spent a whole evening trying to remember what I deleted. Git's a lifesaver even for tiny personal stuff.

sage_moore377d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, wait - you spent a WHOLE evening trying to undo what you deleted? Oh man that's brutal. I'd have rage quit coding forever. @the_fiona's totally right though about the commit thing - I learned that one the hard way too, stared at my screen for an hour after forgetting to commit and thinking "well that's gone forever.

leehall7d ago

Did you ever talk yourself out of using Git because you thought it was overkill for a one-person project? I was exactly the same until I nuked a whole weekend's worth of work on a silly script and had nothing to roll back to. Now I commit constantly even on my dumbest little side projects because that safety net is totally worth the few seconds it takes.

the_fiona7d ago

Oh wait, don't you also use Git to save yourself from accidentally deleting something important forever? That's actually the main reason I started too, but I'd gently point out that Git doesn't always catch every little mistake if you forget to commit before making changes. I found that out the hard way when I made a change, ran the code, then realized I hadn't committed the working version right before it broke.