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In a current project a lot of prototyping happens. This produces a lot of source code which I like to remove.
At the same time I would like to be able to access this code at a later date, For explaining why things have been done a certain way or reuse in other projects.
I also want to stay light on tools, so I'm looking for processes and templates that I can use to store this information.
I'm storing my source code in git.
Just store it in git, in a separate location. You're not likely to have capacity issues because of source code required for prototyping.
But you do want to exclude it from statistics as it may not confirm to strict coding standards.
It's code, so use source control.
I would hope that source control is being used regardless of whether it is a prototype or not. Personally I'd recommend using source control even for "proof of concept" and other quick test projects to figure out how to use or do something.
As source control software is essentially an archive with version control, archiving your prototypes then simply becomes a matter of organization within the source control software that you use.
Depending on the source control software, you could use a separate repository, a separate solution / project group, a separate folder, or any combination of these.
One option is to use git's branching functionality. When you run one of these prototypes, do it in a branch (like a topic branch). For most of these, they would then just sit in their own little branches, separate from the main/development branch.
If you decide to keep and integrate the prototype code into the production code, all you need to do then is to merge the topic branch into the main/development branch.
