[Boost-users] Git vs SVN (was: Re: What's happened to Ryppl?)

Subject: [Boost-users] Git vs SVN (was: Re: What's happened to Ryppl?)
From: Anthony Foiani (tkil_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-28 02:12:24

Edward --

Edward Diener <eldiener_at_[hidden]> writes:
> I hope such a discussion entails a very strong justification of why
> Git is better than Subversion. I still do not buy it, and only find
> Git more complicated and harder to use than Subversion with little
> advantage.  [...], but no one is bothering to explain why this
> latest thing has any value to Boost.

For my own development efforts, I've found Git to be an improvement
over Subversion in the following ways:

1. Detached development.

   The ability to do incremental check-ins without requiring a network
   connection is a huge win for me.

2. Data backup.

   If every developer (more, every developer's computer) has a full
   copy of the history on it, that is more distributed and easier to
   obtain than making sure you have transaction-perfect replication of
   your master SVN repository.  (Or, at least, it was for me.)

3. Experimentation.

   In my experience, branching is cheaper and much lighter-weight in
   Git than in SVN.

I do sympathize with the "harder than svn" complaint; I find it so
myself.  But having been left out in the cold a few times by having
only SVN, I will certainly run my next project with git rather than
svn.

Also, it's not clear that Boost has the same level of contributor
fan-in that is git's truest strength.

Regards,
Tony