Audit trail

The importance of documenting you work cannot be overstated. If we are doing analyses in a reproducible way then we are using code to carry out all the data manipulations. Fortunately for us there exist version control systems to make our lives easier.

The most commonly used version control systems used today are:

• Subversion
• Mercurial
• Git

This is by no means a complete list. Wiki maintains a more comprehensive list for those who are interested. Version control systems are software that help us manage documents (i.e. code or manuscripts) that change through time. They may be used through graphical user interfaces or via the command line. Although these systems may be installed locally it is more common to see them used along with a place to store the documents.

The most commonly used web-based hosting services for revision control are:

• GitHub
• Bitbucket
• Google code

These services are free and they promote collaboration. I encourage you to read some of the following resources about version control in scientific research.

• Version control for scientific research
• Git can facilitate greater reproducibility and increased transparency in science
• Where’s the Real Bottleneck in Scientific Computing?
• Software carpentry’s lectures on version control