Re: Mercurial vs. git

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Am Dienstag, 22. September 2009 00:37:57 schrieb olafBuddenhagen@gmx.net:
> The great thing about git is that everything can be reverted (with the
> obvious exception of git-gc...) -- including a revert.

Which is the only normal operation you can't revert in hg. 

normal means here: you don't use commands from extensions. 

> I really think this is the most important feature of git. No matter
> how much you screw up, you can always go back

Sound a bit strange, when I think about the number of times I gave up trying 
to revert in git and just got a new clone... but I can easily believe that to 
be true once your really master git. 

Though in practical work the ability to revert is similar in Mercurial. You 
might not have all changesets lying around, but there's always another source 
to get the original version from and add the changes you really want. That's a 
reason why many Mercurial users go for feature clones: If you want to 
implement a new feature, you just clone your repo, do your changes, and push 
them back when you'r satisfied with them. 

Since the cloning uses hardlinks for the history, the additional clone doesn't 
cost much time. 

As far as I know, people who use git rather go for seperate in-repo branches 
(which already wrecked my own repo twice, because I did *something* wrong). 

> that you can always recover, you can go ahead an try all kinds of crazy
> or otherwise "risky" stuff, which you'd never attempt otherwise.

My approach with git is "I can get a new clone" ;) 
 
That's why I much prefer git to subversion: regardles of what I did wrong, if 
everything breaks, I can just copy my changed files into a new clone... 

> Only once you understand this (and of course also know enough about the
> available possibilities to make use of it), you can truely appreciate
> the power of git. Unfortunately, few people bother to go that deep :-(

It's sadly not easy to get there. 

Still: It's a damn nice system, too, and since I can now interact with 
(almost) any git repo via Mercurial, it's complexity doesn't really bother me 
anymore. 

Best wishes, 
Arne

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Ein Mann wird auf der Straße mit einem Messer bedroht. 
Zwei Polizisten sind sofort da und halten ein Transparent davor. 

        "Illegale Szene. Niemand darf das sehen."

Der Mann wird ausgeraubt, erstochen und verblutet, 
denn die Polizisten haben beide Hände voll zu tun. 

Willkommen in Deutschland. Zensur ist schön. 
                      (http://draketo.de)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.