software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

(and, by extension, in content-editing environments, especially

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

s, that make use of the software development process of

revision control Version control (also known as revision control, source control, and source code management) is the software engineering practice of controlling, organizing, and tracking different versions in history of computer files; primarily source code ...

), reversion or reverting is the abandonment of one or more recent changes in favor of a return to a previous version of the material at hand (typically software source code in the context of application development; HTML, CSS or script code in the context of web development; or content and formatting thereof in the context of wikis). A revert may be done for a wide variety of reasons, including: fixing errors introduced by previous edits; restoring the material to a state that was not contentious until new disputes can be resolved; undoing scope creep;

regression testing Regression testing (rarely, ''non-regression testing'') is re-running functional and non-functional tests to ensure that previously developed and tested software still performs as expected after a change. If not, that would be called a '' regr ...

; and even petty malice, vandalistic intent, or personal unhappiness with the author of a previous change. While the is generally agreed to be a sound and sometimes necessary one, particular instantiations of its use may be at least as controversial as the changes being reverted.

See also