Perhaps the backups are a separate process, run beforehand or after this process once several changes (perhaps to several files) have been made, so not backing up intermediate states?

Backups should be handled by an external process, otherwise, your script also needs to take into account: - Number of backups to retain and cleaning up old versions - Monitoring of backups. What if backing up fails? - The script itself can tamper with the backups unintentionally?

Speaking from (bad) experience

Real programmers don't make backups.

Real programmers throw their source code out onto the internet.

Real programmers don't keep source code.

Real programmers leave for more pay before somebody asked about backups.