I'm a two-bit hacker. Most code I've written to date is small and self contained, rarely more than a couple of files. For that reason, I always thought that version control was a bit overkill--a good idea, but not really worth the effort on small projects. However, at work we do use version control and it's been an interesting experience. The main selling point for version control software is the ability to track changes, but I've found that the changes that using version control software has made to my coding practice have been the most useful. Instead of hacking away at whichever bit of code that's in front of me, I'm having to consider the changes that I'm making as commitable chunks. This has clarified my thinking about what I'm doing and improved my focus. So, from now on, version control on everything more than a five line shell script.