Best way to synchronize my code between multiple workstations?

Firstly, I'm not sure if this belongs here or programmers. Please move if it needs to be there.

I am mostly a hobbiest web developer, with a bit of freelance sidework. I program anywhere I can, from a laptop on the go to my home PC. I've pretty well settled on Net Beans as my IDE, and xampp for my test environment. My question is how do I best synchronize changes between my different PCs?

I started out FTPing changes to a "dev" area on my webserver, then FTPing them down to my other PC, but that's sort of a pain. Lately I have started using dropbox, which takes a lot of the pain out, but still isn't quite as seemless as I'd like.

Has anyone come up with开发者_JAVA技巧 a bulletproof way to easily ensure you're always opening up the latest version of your files across multiple PCs which aren't necessarily always (but sometimes are) on your home network?

Free is a necessity.

I personally use Subversion.

It integrates easily with Netbeans or Eclipse, and you say you've got a webserver, which I presume is Linux based? It's easy to set up in any Linux environment, though I think it can also be set up in a Windows environment.

Then you just run an update on your code when you want to get the latest version, do checkins when you like it, and you can always go back to earlier code (like if you tried a two day experiment that didn't work out and now want to delete it all and go back to what you had that was working).

Use some version control system. If you are new to this stuff Subversion would be probably the easiest to start with and it is very well intergrated with Netbeans.

You may set up repository on your own server or use some external service - there are a lot of them and almost everyone offers some free plan to start with. I'd be glad to give you some pointers if you like.

Learn to use a version control system.

www.github.com is free for open source projects, but must pay for private source repositories and also closed source projects, hurray.

http://unfuddle.com uses subversion, and is free for 200Mb of private source.

You may find some of the links in this thread useful.

A very simple and efficient way is to open an account on dropbox.com.

I disagree with a lot of the answers here (A lot are pretty old). Git/SVN is not a synchronization solution (nor a backup). It is just a version control system. (But if done correctly you can use git and a sync tool at the same time.)

By using git for synchronization you get the following side effects:

• polluted git log: e.g. git commit -am 'synced files'... 'synced files again', 'synced from laptop', 'synced from desktop'
• a substandard workflow: every time you leave your workstation or laptop you have to remember to git commit and push. This takes time and mental energy

Instead, I would recommend a solution that offers a continuous sync of your files to a central server. You can close your laptop within five seconds (maybe less) and your changes are propagated to a central server awaiting to sync to other devices when they come online. One priviso: you need to make sure you are not syncing folders like .git so a sync from your laptop .git for your project doesn't corrupt your .git on your desktop. Some options are:

• Synology Cloudstation Drive - I can speak personally to this one. It excludes all "." files by default, and syncs at every file change. As soon as you save the file it is synced
• NextCloud/OwnCloud - I now use Nextcloud, sync all computers, and make sure to exclude .git so that each git repo will track independent changes against origin BUT still be synced between devices.
• Google Drive
• Dropbox

You can set up a web-based source repository on something like http://www.github.com, and be able to access it from any computer.