Mercurial vs. git (Re: hurd-web/hurd/translator/unionmount.mdwn)

[Sergiu Ivanov]

Hello,

On Tue, Sep 08, 2009 at 12:28:09PM +0200, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 8. September 2009 09:08:23 schrieb Sergiu Ivanov:
>  
> > > PS: I now use the wiki via Mercurial and the hg-git extension.  That way
> > > I avoid getting bitten by git again ;)
> > > I only need got for *creating* short-lived branches (sicne I can already
> > > do the merging from mercurial).
> > 
> > That's great :-)
> > 
> > Seeing how advertently you propagate Mercurial in every applicable
> > task, I think I'll have to have a look at it :-) It should be worth
> > the time ;-)
> 
> Maybe I should write a disclaimer into my signature : "I really like 
> Mercurial, but please also ask Olaf why git is great, so you see both sides" 
> :) 

I remember your long discussion about Mercurial vs. git, but I don't
remember all the details, because I didn't understand a lot at those
times.  However, it has just occurred to me that I should start
familiarizing with Mercurial by reading that discussion, because in
this way I could reference things with respect to git, which I already
know.  In this way I'll the explanation ``why git is great'', too :-)
 
> I assume it's mostly personal preference.  I like the feel of
> Mercurial far more than that of git, but technically they are about
> equal.  Philosophically they are quite different, though.  Git
> advocates mutable history and private branches which you rebase
> before you publish, while Mercurial advocates immutable history
> (what's done is done) and early publishing of private branches to be
> merged later on (you need to use command line options to *avoid*
> publishing all branches when you push).

Hm, immutable history frightens me -- my usual programming loop is
like ``think->try->think again'', and during the third phase I often
run into the necessity of changing what I have already done.  Thus
git-reset is one of my favourites :-)

> What I also prefer about Mercurial is that it's very hard to shoot
> yourself in the foot with the commands you get when you don't
> activate any extensions (even though the extensions are shipped with
> Mercurial and thus part of the program, they aren't active by
> default).  That makes it hard to break and quite useful for less
> technical minded people, too.

Do I understand it right, then, that when you don't activate any
extensions, Mercurial allows only a basic set of operations which are
guaranteed to keep things safe?
 
> Also another disclaimer is needed: I actively contributed to
> Mercurial up to a month ago (for example I wrote most of the content
> on http://hg-scm.org )and only stopped because I have to concentrate
> on learning for my diploma exam, now.  So I decided to stick to the
> Hurd, because I though that I can make more of a difference here
> while needing to invest far less time (writing the news should only
> take about half an hour to an hour per week).
> 
> So my view is clearly *not* unbiased :) 

I see :-)

Good luck with learning and passing the exam! :-)

BTW, I like the news idea a lot, since it keeps the Hurd web-site
regularly updated.  I, for instance, have the habit of looking at the
``last updated'' date on any new site I arrive on to assess the level
of activity in the project.

Regards,
scolobb