There is a plethora of version control systems and it is not obvious which to choose. Do

you pine for the warm, comforting blanket of CVS? Fear not! I shall give an overview of the zoo of version control systems available to the modern programmer. I'll describe the design principles (there is much overlap) and how these influence the use patterns. I hope to convince you that modern systems are at least as good as CVS and Subversion, and to indicate some of the areas in which they make a programmer's life much, much easier.