I dont even have a quarter of your experience. I do realize we have multiple backups either intentionally or unintentionally. But one thing I found when I don't

I dont even have a quarter of your experience. I do realize we have multiple backups either intentionally or unintentionally. But one thing I found when I don't check in code, and unfortunately have to resort to one of the backups, is that a lots of time is spent finding out which is the latest and has all the changes. Under really unfortunate circumstances, I have ended up with different copies of the code having portions of the latest features and having to merge. I have also had the bad fortune of cursing myself for deleting a code file unintentionally and having to rewrite it from some other unfinished copy. Makes me love version control systems. I always use one even for my personal projects. That is my recipe for coding without fear. YMMV.