Re: Git vs SVN (was: Can we improve things?)

["Sanford Armstrong" <sanfordarmstrong gmail com>]

On 9/8/07, Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 08, 2007 at 03:23:31PM +0300, Zeeshan Ali wrote:
> > Hi!
> >    Was hard to sleep last night after i sent my last message so i must
> > clarify something before i attempt to answer anyone's reply:
> >
> > >   You need to look at it a bit objectively. Linus says "you are stupid
> > > and ugly" because you truly are stupid if you prefer to use SVN or any
> > > centralized SCM and he clearly points out most of the reason why this
> > > it the honest truth.
> >
> >   *I* am not calling anyone stupid, it was Linus and I only quoted.
> > Still i am sorry i did that, guess i just got taken away..
>
> Oh, sorry for misunderstanding you. From the way you replied, I thought
> it was your opinion too.

If you watch Linus' presentation, it's kind of a running joke that
anyone who disagrees with him must be "stupid and ugly".

That being said, he doesn't spend too much time backing up his
conclusions about SVN.  They basically amount to:

1) Linus hated CVS (and most people in the audience agree).
2) SVN is similar in usage to CVS.
3) Therefore, SVN cannot possibly be a good tool.

So I wouldn't say that the presentation does a very good job of
objectively proving the greatness of D-SCM.  However, it does give
great insight into git itself, the kernel development style, and
Linus' personal usage of the tool.

My personal opinion is that in the short term, using a D-SCM actually
raises the barrier for entry for *new* developers.  The biggest
winners of an instant conversion to D-SCM would be regular
contributors without SVN accounts (followed next by maintainers and
others who long for better merging).  In the long term, as more people
are used to the D-SCM tools (with their inevitably more complicated
UIs), and as more distros ship them by default, and as they continue
to improve, the positive impact will be more widespread.

I know their are a few random blog posts floating around, but I'd like
to see something on l.g.o that documents the suggested workflow for
git-svn/bzr-svn/hg-svn/etc.  Is it really a passable solution to all
this?  Does it help regular contributors without SVN accounts in a
concrete way?

Sandy