There's a feature I like to have in version control systems that I seldom see. It's the ability to package changes from different packages and applications into one unit that's submitted atomically. If I'm putting in a fix for a bug or working on a piece of a new feature, I could make changes in lots of different areas of the system. If the changes in one area are to be loaded, they require the corresponding changes in the other area. It's nice to be able to put these into an update. The update would have a reason like a bug number and would be submitted atomically - either all changes take effect or none of them. If you have a process for frequently creating new baselines in your version control system, then you can view the updates as units that apply to the last baseline and bring the system from the previous working state to a new working state. Each update is applied in order. Once you've applied all the updates, you can create your new baseline. With this mechanism, there's no question any more what components you need to load in order to pick up a bug fix or a new feature. It provides better history, testability and traceability of the code.
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