Comments on: Zealotry For Good And Evil

By: Marc Charbonneau

Marc Charbonneau — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:40:31 +0000

It’s funny, my experience as a single developer is pretty much completely the opposite. I wanted a version control system where I didn’t have to use a client-server model, and didn’t have all the drawbacks of SVN such as renaming. Git turned out to be more “mac like” from my point of view, even though I never really touch the advanced features.

In defense of Subversion, this was before all these awesome looking graphical SVN clients came out, and also before it had Xcode integration. With Github though I’m still very happy with git, I can’t see myself switching back to Subversion any time soon.

By: warren

warren — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:45:05 +0000

There’s no reason that two sequential common applications like commit and push could not be put into a single batch file. “checkin.sh”

Warren

By: DDA

DDA — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:19:22 +0000

One problem with joining the zealots is that you get affected by any backlash against said zealots; the amount of “I’m not with those guys” one has to do can get tiresome.

Note also that there are many times when a zealot getting things done isn’t a good thing; “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies to a lot of what zealots want to fix.

I also believe that Brett could solve his issues with Subversion by enabling https access to his desktop repository; at the end of the coding day on the laptop, he just commits to that and he’s done.

By: Steve Madsen

Steve Madsen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:21:25 +0000

I’m always suspicious of anything I hear the “cool kids” are using. Git is no different than many other things that fall into this group. It’s good, if not great, for the things it was designed to do, but I can’t say for sure because I (and, I’ll venture, most people) don’t need to do those things.

For me, Subversion fits the definition of how source control works. I had used CVS and similar systems for years. I don’t want to spend my time worrying about whether or not my project history is perfect. If I can tag, branch, merge and get my code in and out, and the stuff I do every day is easy and fast, that’s good enough. Git does lots of whizzy things, but they’re mostly things I don’t _need_ to do.

Git has one feature I like: it’s nice to keep everything in one directory, repository and all, for short-term client projects that don’t otherwise use source control. In these cases, it’s nice to have a safety net, and just as nice when the project is complete to archive or delete that one directory. I don’t want to clutter up an existing Subversion repository with these projects, nor do I want to spend the time to create dozens of short-lived repositories.

By: arw

arw — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:36:55 +0000

Long time Mac users such as myself have little tolerance for software having a poor user interface, i.e. anything made by Microsoft. This comes about not from zealotry, but rather years of working with software elegantly designed to foster a rich user experience. Most software written for the PC simply would fail if written for the Mac simply due to a poorly designed, often complex user interface—Mac users demand otherwise. That being said, it’s really difficult to present complex functionality in an elegant way, simple enough to get the job done without losing power and flexibility.

By: George Sudarkoff

George Sudarkoff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:38:15 +0000

I’ve two points. (1) I’m pretty sure that Xcode integration will deliver Mac developers to git in droves zealotry notwithstanding. (2) Usability of any Unix-style CLI utility is in its superb fit for automation. It’s foolish (to put it mildly) to complain about poor usability of awk, for example.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:35:20 +0000

I haven’t tried it yet, but there’s easy git (eg), which aims to provide a simpler interface to the underlying functionality. There are some other wrappers along this line of thinking.
http://www.gnome.org/~newren/eg/

By: foljs

foljs — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:05:05 +0000

What eventually got to him was the usability, or lack thereof, of the system.

Compared to what?

I mean, Git is so far ahead of SVN feature and usability use that it’s not even funny.

Although it’s not ahead usability wise in the sense that it’s meticulously designed but in the sense “Hey, I don’t have to jump through 100 hoops to do this thing that should be simple”.

We could do with Xcode integration and/or a nice GUI though (GitX is still not there).

By: charles

charles — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:00:36 +0000

Eric Sink actually has a series of 2 posts about other aspects of git vs svn, see http://www.ericsink.com/entries/dvcs_dag_1.html

By: Jon Gretar Borgthorsson

Jon Gretar Borgthorsson — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:45:48 +0000

You should also check out GitX(http://gitx.frim.nl/). A very nice OS-X GUI for git usage.

Brent’s experience seems to be in single developer project. And yes then there is this extra step of pushing the changes to the server after a long day of coding. But I feel the advantage of having actual branches gives me back that time quickly. However as soon as you have 2 developers on a project then git starts being easyer. And in a large open source project with 10 active developers and tons of patch committers then I couldn’t imagine using Subversion. Git simply wins in that scenario no matter which way you look at it.

I really didn’t like Git to begin with. Mostly because I saw Linus talk about it and he is a great bit dick when he talks about things. :) But after downloading a few screencasts I was sold.