How to convince people to use revision control

[Nicholas Leippe]

On Tuesday 01 May 2007, Dave Smith wrote:
> I am a huge fan of revision control for software development. Until
> recently, I thought every one else was too. For the past couple years,
> I've been working with someone who begrudgingly uses CVS and Subversion
> and only commits about once a month (on good months). The ill effects of
> such a practice seem obvious to me, though I have a hard time voicing
> them to my co-worker. To date, my attempts at convincing him to do at
> least daily commits have fallen on deaf ears. He claims that his manual
> backups are sufficient, and that for a one-man project it doesn't really
> matter. Can you give me any suggestions on how I can convince him to
> join the rest of the civilized world and use revision control daily,
> without being a jerk and going over his head?
>
> Thanks in advance!

You might try forcing an 'exercise' on him in which lack of revision control 
will become the obvious loser.  (Ask to remove/undo some small change from a 
few weeks ago or something, or ask him to figure out exactly when some change 
went in--you can trump up a reason such as a client has a billing dispute 
regarding the bug/feature and accounting needs to know whether it's valid or 
not.)