Re: [boost] DCVS vs CVS: call for constructivism

Subject: Re: [boost] DCVS vs CVS: call for constructivism
From: Julian Gonggrijp (j.gonggrijp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-03-27 06:37:31

Edward Diener wrote:

> On 3/26/2012 4:37 AM, Philippe Vaucher wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> You won't find individual points where DCVS seem to really
>> outperform/outfeature the classic CVS,

I think Philippe was being too modest here. Git DOES outperform svn 
(faster operations, slightly better merging) and outfeatures it in 
several ways, as illustrated by Dave (from Cray) in the previous 
post.

>> but together as a whole it really
>> makes a difference for a lot of people. I agree that "horrible" is probably
>> too far streched, sorry for that... but I think the current situation
>> frustrates people, and it eventually gets on their nerves.
> 
> This is my point about the move from a CVS like SVN to a DVCS like Git ( or Mercurial ). I really do not understand the necessity for it based on use cases which are causing people to feel that a change should be made.

Evidently there is no necessity, otherwise Boost would have switched 
already. The discussion seems to be rather on whether the benefits 
outweigh the costs. I'm starting to think that perhaps we're 
disagreeing more about the costs than about the benefits.

> I do hear general reasons why some people are more comfortable with a DVCS but since switching is going to cause me to have to learn a new set of techniques for working with version control and Boost libraries, while I am already quite comfortable with the current SVN system and its capabilities, you can understand why I do not see the reason for having to make this change.

What you say here seems to be more about your comfort than about 
performance, features, necessity of switching or the comfort of 
others. You're comfortable enough with svn to not want to change, 
unless somebody can convince you in advance that you'll be much more 
comfortable with git (or hg). The latter is probably impossible 
because people tend to only judge comfort by their own experience.

(Note: several DVCS proponents in these discussions have used comfort 
arguments as well. Some of them have enough experience with both svn 
and git/hg to make a proper comparison of comfort, while some others 
might just be more familiar with git/hg. However, it's not all 
comfort arguments; less subjective, technical arguments have been 
given from the beginning.)

> Simply saying that X is better because of some general reasons, which do not apply IMO to actual usage. does not make me want to do something different in programming and programming tools.

How do faster operations, versioned patches, versioned local work, 
smaller average commit size and better merging not apply to actual 
usage?

-Julian