Comments on: Git Versus Subversion: A Reconsideration

By: Pjerky

Pjerky — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:45:11 +0000

I have used both and I can see the benefit of both, but into Git learns to play well with Windows (especially the GUI interfaces) and other non-Linux OSes there will probably not be wide adoption of this. Subversion’s cross-platform compatibility and its age and refinement are its strengths that will keep it firmly in the cross-hairs of businesses everywhere that rely on Windows for day to day operations.

I have found that working with Git is very very frustrating when doing it within Windows, which is why I use VMware player running Ubuntu to deal with Git repositories.

By: Stephen Cox

Stephen Cox — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:32:29 +0000

You know, I once said I ‘rarely used SVN (or any source control) for small projects’. But I’ve changed my mind. Now I use it for everything.. even documentation.

By: Jonathan H. Wage

Jonathan H. Wage — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:53:08 +0000

Knowing how git works internally really helped me understand the difference between git and SVN lots better and ultimately fall in love with git. At #sflive2010 Scott Chacon from github gave us a git training and it was very interesting for him to explain to us how things worked.

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:25:37 +0000

You said “in a corporate environment”…and svn still rules there. Git is a no show.

By: Herman Radtke

Herman Radtke — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:50:46 +0000

Switching between branches forces me to recompile the entire application when using git. With svn, I have a separate directory for each branch. Now I could write some script that performs some magic to get around this problem, but it is not a generic solution.

By: Steve Brosser

Steve Brosser — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:35:02 +0000

Johannes -

If you need to commit before you build and test, you’ve got bigger problems that can be solved by version control systems. I suggest you manage your own institution’s problems before you blame them on a version control system, distributed or otherwise.

By: Steve Brosser

Steve Brosser — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:31:01 +0000

Carlos -

Of course we’ve all seen that. And Joel is dead wrong. We’d comment on Joel’s blog to point that out that he’s wrong, but he doesn’t allow comments.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

By: Johannes

Johannes — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 09:48:06 +0000

Herman, why shouldn’t a distributed system work with a “compiled language”? for me it makes even more sense as I more likely have to test on different configurations/systems/platforms and the general edit code ->build -> test circle takes longer which makes local, nonpublic,commits way more useful.

By: Herman Radtke

Herman Radtke — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:20:02 +0000

Brandon: That makes more sense. Thanks for keeping the comments clean. I enjoy reading both your posts and the responses.

By: Brandon Savage

Brandon Savage — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:15:02 +0000

Carlos of course I’ve seen that. Good work from Joel. And Herman, be aware I don’t post EVERY comment that’s submitted. I post any that aren’t offensive or blatant attacks.

By: Carlos Aguado

Carlos Aguado — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:07:02 +0000

Hi Brandon,

I guess you already know this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/03/17.html

If not, I suggest you take a look to it… ;-)

By: Herman Radtke

Herman Radtke — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:04:07 +0000

I have a hard time using git with compiled languages and prefer svn instead. I mentioned this on the php internals list. Maybe I should ask Travis if he has any ideas to resolve the issues I have.

On a side note:
Flamed? Some of your posts are intentionally controversial, so you should expect passionate responses. I just skimmed through the replies and did not notice any personal attacks or name calling. Hardly flames, just strong opinions.

By: Brandon Savage

Brandon Savage — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:03:39 +0000

Al, not a flip-flop, but a learning process. I’m pretty sure that for some of the guys writing Subversion today you can find them extolling the virtues of CVS at one point; now they’ve moved on.

Developers change over time, like most people. In this case the change was much faster than others, but still a change of the mind, not a flip flop.

By: Johannes

Johannes — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:05:55 +0000

If you look in the corporate world you can’t stop at Subversion or git. Many companies use commercial systems like BitKeeper (which made big influence on git’s design) or perforce (which is cvs/svn like in some ways). IBM provides ClearCase. In the “Windows world” there’s Visual Source Safe quite often used. All of them provide some “corporate features” the other systems can’t provide. And all of them are heavily used in larger corporations. SCM – Software configuration management is more than jsut version control of (code) files.

It is likely that many corporations will choose a two tier process, where a central main repository in a proven VCS exists, probably with a support contract somewhere, but in my very personal opinion every “sane” developer will have a git clone locally available. This might be used to temporarily store work in progress or quickly browsing the history.

By: Al Kida

Al Kida — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:48:36 +0000

When you start using another version control system (i.e., Mercurial), will say that it’s better than Git? This just feels like a flip-flop, IMO.