Rstudio and version control facilities

Question

I have a question regarding the version control integration in Rstudio.

What's the advantage of using it instead of an external version control manager like SourceTree?

From what I understand the main advantage is to avoid using another tool and saving the switch from a window to another.

But the problem is we often need to use other languages in a data mining projects (SQL, Python, ...) so in almost every scenario we also need a dedicated version control manager.

Answer 1

It's not an either/or . Think of RStudio's version control as a way to accomplish your most common source control tasks without leaving the IDE. For instance, press Ctrl + Alt + D to see a diff of the current file. How long would that take using an external tool?

Likewise, you can easily commit a change in just a few keystrokes (try Ctrl + Alt + M ), and you're never more than a click away from seeing which branch you're on.

Most IDEs have some basic form of version control built-in for this reason. It isn't intended to completely replace any VCS tools you're using; it's intended to keep you from having to switch context when you're doing common tasks. You will still need to use an external VCS for more complicated operations.

Another thing to keep in mind is that RStudio can manage your whole data science project, not just its R code. You can use its VCS integration to manage and commit changes to files of any kind. We sometimes use it as a VCS interface to projects that contain no R code at all!

Some people prefer to do everything VCS-related in a single interface. That's great, and hopefully the RStudio VCS integration stays out of your way if that's your workflow. But most IDE users like being able to do day-to-day VCS operations without breaking context, and that's what the VCS integration in RStudio is for.