# Problems Faced Before Version Control Systems

It's okay to have bugs in code, but it’s **not okay to fail to deliver products on time.** Especially when the company burns lakhs for the developers.

What was the problem previously? Let's look at the Pendrive Era.

## Why We Stopped Using Pendrives ?

Imagine we start a new project. It's assigned to a team of 3 developers, and the company is paying them **$50/hour each**.

They discuss the architecture. They even give it an internal name **Project Monkey**.

1. **Dev-1** starts working on the landing page. He completes it roughly in an hour.
    
2. To let the other 2 devs review the code, he makes a `first_v1.zip` folder and shifts the zip folder into the **pendrive**.
    
3. Finally, they get to read the code from the pendrive and copy the zip folder to work further on top of that.
    

### The Cost

While the first dev was writing code, the other 2 devs were waiting for the pendrive.

> The company is burning **$100/hour for zero output.**

This Inactive time kills the delivery time of the project.

After an hour, they share the pendrive again.

* **Third dev** passed the pendrive to **First dev**.
    
* **First dev** was confused: *"Bro, you coded a lot, but what changed?"*
    
* **First dev** passed the pendrive to **Second dev**.
    
* **Second dev** was again confused: *"Guys there’s lots of code, which code is written by whom?"*
    

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### Issue #1: Tracking & Accountability

> **Dev:** "Who wrote this bug?"  
> **Manager:** "How should I pay them? I don’t know who contributed and how."

**🛑 Impact:** Wasted Salaries, We are paying for work we can't track.

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### Issue #2: Collaboration and Time

This is the Serial vs Parallel problem.

> **Dev:** "If someone fixed an error, I need to wait for the updated code so I can code further!"  
> **Manager:** "Why is only one dev working at a time?"

**🛑 Impact:** Delivery Time & Code Quality.

By chance, if they started working parallelly, they are still out of sync! If we have 5 or 10 devs in a team, think about the amount of time they will take just to *share* code.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1768034308970/c78185c6-7a09-4d1c-83ad-7d154ef5b5b1.jpeg align="center")

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### Issue #3: Versioning and Backups

While sharing, everyone is creating an "updated zip folder." It is hard to know which is the correct and newer version.

> **Dev:** "An error occurred! I need the old version... but where is it?"  
> **Manager:** "There is no recovery and no backups?"

**🛑 Impact:** High Risk. One corrupted pendrive kills the project.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1768034495920/b579c1c5-a311-40a0-955c-9b0f5c0ace8a.png align="center")

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## What’s the solution?

We realized we can't scale with pendrives. We need a system that can:

1. **Track every line:** When was it updated? Who updated it?
    
2. **Enable Parallel Work:** Allow everyone to see updated code every second.
    
3. **Auto-Backup:** Save history by tracking every single update.
    

We needed a way to let 100 developers work on the same project at the exact same second, without costing the company a lot in money and time.

That system is **Git**.

**Next Article:** [**What actually is Git?**](https://git-exploration-mayur.hashnode.dev/git-for-beginners-basics-and-essential-commands)