Re: [boost] [git] Mercurial?

Subject: Re: [boost] [git] Mercurial?
From: Bronek Kozicki (brok_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-03-20 07:18:22

On 20/03/2012 07:47, Sergiu Dotenco wrote:
> On 3/20/2012 2:41 AM, Bruno Santos wrote:
... [BK cut here]
>> I don't think mercurial is simpler to use. It just makes it harder
>> to edit history, which is only advantageous for someone completely
>> clueless about it.
>
> You think? How about sticking to the facts? Moreover, why would you
> even want to edit already shared history? Seems like there are much
> more clueless Git users who are not able to handle the tool in the
> first place.

"already shared" is implied and unnecessary. If you remove this bit, 
editing history in git starts to make perfect sense.

When you want history to be readable and logical to other contributors, 
you will likely want to use "git rebase -i" to tidy up or roll up your 
*local* commits *before* you share them with others. It is your private 
repository and private changes, until you share it.

This enables tight private iteration loop while keeping the noise off 
public repository. Eg. you can do commit small change, run test, commit 
more changes, run more tests, to eventually find out that the first 
change had a fatal bug. Edit first commit, add necessary comment, rinse 
and repeat as necessary. When done and tested, roll up your commits and 
share with others.

Just an example of style really, the important point is that your 
development style will not create unnecessary commits in shared 
repository. Well at least this is my experience from using git, and it 
seems to work well for my (very distributed) team.

B.