Git, Mercurial or Bazaar - which do you use most?

[Azgur]

It's really regrettable. Git is what a greate system (not only a DVCS), so lets time to prove that choosing hg is a mistake. So sad to hear that.

Considering why so many well know open source "Projects using Git" at http://git-scm.com/.

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# Linux Kernel        # Perl           # X.org
# Fedora              # Debian         # VLC
# Gnome               # Qt             # Ruby on Rails
# Android             # Wine

Also, I'm from oDesk, never heard any buyer using hg in 3 years. Git is the future!!!

And Pro Git is a excellent free online book for Git, to learn and familiar with Git in 1 or 2 days!

This is the exact attitude that puts me off when it comes to git and Linux in general.
It's not the product at fault, it's the community.
Try to be more understanding and respectful towards the 'competition' and you'll be surprised at the different kind of responses you get.

[jacmoe]

Git is what a greate system (not only a DVCS)

I agree with you that it's not only a DVCS, but seems to be a religion as well..

Have nothing against Git per se - it's basically Linus' set of dvcs programmers tools.
If you care to enlighten yourself, Mercurial and Git were written for the same purpose: to replace BitKeeper.
Linus chose his own tools.
Doesn't make it better than the alternative.
I guess he was used to working with it.

[rayee]

It's fact that git has been widely used in open source projects more than others DVCS. Yes, it may not be the case on Windoz, I've not used Windoz as my major desktop years.

I'm not a Git evangelists or any techs, so I don't want to say any more about Git vs Hg or others from now.

Today, I've found a git repo of Ogre3D at http://gitorious.org/ogre3d

It seems not an official mirror of git repos from Ogre3D.org

Is the owner "~svnmirror" come from members of ogre3d forums?

After cloning, I got some infomations which looks very promising, [s]but the disk usage[/s].

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ogre$ git remote -v
origin	git://gitorious.org/ogre3d/mainlinemirror.git (fetch)
origin	git://gitorious.org/ogre3d/mainlinemirror.git (push)
ogre$ du -sh .
213M	.
ogre$ git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/Azathoth
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/Hastur
  remotes/origin/IKsampler
  remotes/origin/PreviewMerge
  remotes/origin/avendor
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/material-unstable
  remotes/origin/resource-unstable
  remotes/origin/soc06-billboardclouds
  remotes/origin/soc06-instancing
  remotes/origin/soc06-rendermonkey
  remotes/origin/soc06-scenemanagement
  remotes/origin/soc06-shadows
  remotes/origin/soc06-xsi
  remotes/origin/soc07-emulation
  remotes/origin/soc07-memory
  remotes/origin/soc08-geomshaders
  remotes/origin/soc08-lod
  remotes/origin/soc08-motionsynth
  remotes/origin/soc09-compositor
  remotes/origin/soc09-samples
  remotes/origin/stateManager
  remotes/origin/unlabeled-1.1.2
  remotes/origin/v0-12-0
  remotes/origin/v0-13
  remotes/origin/v0-14
  remotes/origin/v0-15
  remotes/origin/v1-0
  remotes/origin/v1-2
  remotes/origin/v1-4
  remotes/origin/v1-6
  remotes/origin/v1-7
  remotes/origin/vbo-unstable
ogre$ git tag -l
Dagon-merged-into-HEAD
XSI_1-0-1c
arelease
b237a
help
lastmerge
postEihortGpuParamsChange
pre-resource-merge
........
........
........
v1-7-0
v1-7-0RC1
vbo-unstable-merged-HEAD-fixes

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ogre$ du -sh .git
115M	.git

ogre$ git log -1 --abbrev-commit 
commit df14a04
Author: sinbad <sinbad@8631bf8a-c64b-0410-883c-f3eb003322f7>
Date:   Fri Mar 5 13:03:09 2010 +0000

    Merged revisions 9816,9818-9838,9840-9843,9845-9860 via svnmerge from
    https://svn.ogre3d.org/svnroot/ogre/branches/v1-7

[nikki]

Yes, it may not be the case on Windoz, I've not used Windoz as my major desktop years.

Well, other people do use Windows though.

And everyone, don't penalize Linux or git for the behaviour of some people using it.

[sinbad]

It's fact that git has been widely used in open source projects more than others DVCS. Yes, it may not be the case on Windoz, I've not used Windoz as my major desktop years.

This is the kind of attitude I've encountered around Git (and historically Linux) a lot. "I don't need to use anything other than Linux (or git), so neither do you". It's staggeringly arrogant to assume your requirements are the same as everyone elses.

I'm quite happy for people to mirror OGRE's repository in Git if they want, it just won't be our official repository. I like Git, it's a good piece of software ... so long as you use a *nix based OS and are comfortable with complexity over intuitiveness. During my evaluation I went from really resenting Git's interface and the superior attitude of its evangelists, to actually liking it and appreciating its technical strengths. I came close to choosing it in fact. But in the cold light of day Hg was simply a better choice for us, since we have many, many Windows users and many developers that appreciate user-friendliness over complexity.

A thought for the day: if you ever think there is a single universal 'right' answer to something - anything - you're wrong. The only universal truth in the world is that there is no universal truth. Everything is relative. Evangelists often don't understand that, which is why most of them are not worth listening to.

[nikki]

I just wanted to tell you though - git was my first revision control system (from a 'developer' (ie. 'push' or 'check-in') standpoint, not a 'user' (ie. 'check-out') one), and I didn't find it that complex. Now I was just checking out the SVN docs and it doesn't seem much simpler to understand it than it did for git. I guess it's just a matter of what you're used to. I don't think git is 'trying to be different' just for the heck of it - they just started out with a philosophy and built it around that and it happened to be what it is.

Also, I like the git index and branching.

I'm by no means pushing you to use git, I just don't want you to make git look so bad. Myself, I don't think I'll be contributing to Ogre in the near future - I'm not experienced enough in the graphics field - so it'll just come down to 'hg pull' etc.

[jacmoe]

Heh - no one has said that Git is bad.
As the set of programmers tools it is, it does what it does well, and if it fits the bill for you, that's great.
Personally, though, I prefer Mercurial, even if Git and Mercurial is similarly easy to get into using, I found that Git tends to blow off my leg if I'm not careful.
You can say the same about C++ versus 'lesser' languages, actually.
Although Git versus everything else tends to become religious. Which is a shame.

[mukik182]

I'm not going to start to argue about if git is better than mercurial or not. In these discussion thread I often find declarations like "I don't like git for its fanbase, any project which such evangelists doesn't smell right to me", or that git users are "a bunch of fans without real reasons". I just want to point out that everywhere there are evangelizers, that many times there are not clear arguments in favor of another option because it's just different, not better nor worse.

If you can't stand projects which have evangelizers:
- Don't use git
- Don't use Linux
- Dont use Windows
- Don't use Mercurial
- Don't use CMake
- Don't use Mac
and
- Don't use OGRE.

Even here you can find some evangelizers. Even if none of them are representative of the community, if someone criticizes OGRE or its design they quickly attack without reasoning. I agree that you can't talk with evangelizers nor fanboys, they won't hear you, wherever they are.

[jacmoe]

Well, I think it's safe to say that Linux and Git has the largest number of evangelisers, compared to almost everything else.
Except maybe Ruby on Rails.
That's only natural, I guess.
And that's not saying everyone using Linux and/or Git are evangelising, they're just the loudest.
Most people are enthusiasts.
Nikki is a prime example of that.

There's a fine line between enthusiasts and crusaders.

[mukik182]

I agree with you jacmoe. I was just a little annoyed because I was having the feeling of seeing the others defects and not seeing the own. I sometimes also need someone to point me that, and thought perhaps someone else also needed that. I use git and find it useful, and prefer Linux over Windows (never tried Mac).

Nonetheless I agree with whatever decision is made but I prefer the decisions to be well informed even if they go against my opinion.

Note: I think there has been enough information already. It mainly is a matter of taste now.

[_tommo_]

- Don't use OGRE.

Even here you can find some evangelizers. Even if none of them are representative of the community, if someone criticizes OGRE or its design they quickly attack without reasoning. I agree that you can't talk with evangelizers nor fanboys, they won't hear you, wherever they are.

To be honest i don't see this at all...
I never saw some user attack another one "without reasoning", if you look in the forum you can find discussions for each decision that had to be taken, Git vs Mercurial included, as you can notice.

And, i like Ogre also because of this "wisdom" in its community...
Just try to find any other forum where you can have a thread titled "Why OpenGL is bad" without one single flame post over 3 pages

[Azgur]

It mainly is a matter of taste now.

Actually, the point here was it's not a matter of taste.
Multiple solutions were evaluated and their pros and cons were put next to each other.
Git got ruled out due to the weak Windows support and the large amount of Windows users in Ogre's user base.

The entire point of this thread and sinbad's research was to not leave this decision to taste but instead make a well educated decision based on the needs of the project.
With "the needs of the project" being the most important aspect here. What works for huge projects like the Linux kernel might not work for Ogre.

I think sinbad has done a wonderful job in ignoring evangelists from all directions and evaluate each tool for their merits and not based on the loudness of its community.
It personally took me quite some effort to learn to appreciate Linux for what it is and remain objective towards its flaws after being repeatedly harassed by its evangelists.

[sinbad]

No-one is bad-mouthing Git here. Quite the opposite. That doesn't mean it's right for everyone.

I repeat: I started off with a poor early impression of Git because of the hard-line evangelists (and frankly, they are more of them than average) and the needless re-invention of conflicting nomenclature (I know the argument that it had to be that way because it's so revolutionary, and I'm afraid it doesn't stack up). But experience with the tool itself over time convinced me these were not serious issues and were outweighed by the competence of the tool. The fact that practical experience with Git changed my opinion of it so much is a testament to the fact that I consider it to be good software. But, it's definitely not perfect, especially on Windows.

Unfortunately, I found very few people who had actually tried to use all the DVCS's in earnest, on all platforms, and had done a reasoned, balanced analysis. Almost all of the people expressing an opinion had only ever used one of the DVCSs and were quite happy with it, and saw no reason to learn the other one. That meant there was no alternative but to actually use them all myself for a while, and do real-scale tests with our repository. I'm not an expert in any of them, but I spent a considerable amount of time experimenting particularly with Git and Mercurial, and concluded that the perfect system would be a combination of the two (Git's efficiency and rich toolset for dealing with unusual cases, Mercurial's consistent platform support and shallower learning curve particularly for SVN users). Unfortunately, such a hybrid doesn't exist.

On balance, they were basically neck-and-neck in my evaluation, but in our case consistent platform support (we have lots of Windows users) and intuitiveness for SVN users (again, we have a ton of them) are more important issues than relatively minor differences in efficiency and the ability to use more complex features in Git in rare occasions.

YMMV, obviously. But unless you have done a serious evaluation of the alternatives in a situation that's similar to ours, we'll reserve the right to make our own decision. Of course Git is going to be the best solution for you if you only use Linux. It's painfully obvious - Git was designed for Linux, by Linus Torvalds, and for people who like Linux systems ie lots of flexibility, intuitiveness is a secondary concern. Git preference in the Linux community is hardly surprising. That doesn't make it the best option for everyone else though.

[mukik182]

I'm sorry that I didn't make myself as clear as I would like to. I know nobody is bad-mouthing git, neither mercurial or bazaar. I only found that some arguments were not strong enough to be used as they were, and it wasn't a developer or moderator opinions. I found OGRE team and reputed members very clear and well informed on every issue they give their opinion and I listen carefully, because I usually wasn't aware of that pros, cons or issues on that topic.

When I said it was more or less a matter of taste is precisely because of your examination. Both systems scored the same. For me is exactly the same to use one or another (well, I know git and started to work a little with mercurial, but as I'm just checkouting it's not big deal). Your arguments that favour mercurial are cross-platform support and likeliness to svn and also that (I will say better because I can't find a best word for this) tools of git are for exceptional use while common use is mostly the same. For me it's fine, the important things to you are what matters, I'm only grateful for all your work.

The big problem of git I recognise without a doubt is cross-platform support. I don't know how big it is for normal operations so I won't go further. If it's too big it would have meant an immediate disqualification (I think).

On the ease of use and steep lerning curve, you can argue that even if mercurial is "similar" to svn, you should eventually have to learn to use mercurial features (you can't simply rely on svn, I think they can't be used completely equally but I could be wrong) so you will need to learn a new tool. If you have to learn a new tool, even if it's similar, you could also learn another not so similar tool, as you are putting some effort there it's not big deal (I didn't find git so different).

Also actually I think most svn users do the same I do, checkout and update. When the switch is over I will checkout, update and look at the log to see what's new. I won't even look at it deeply (unless I have a problem to report), just surface to know what's going on. If most users use svn for the same I do, and will use the DVCS as me, it's almost the same to use svn, mercurial or git, the commands are mostly the same ( svn update, git pull or fetch, hg pull hg update), and then (hg log, git log, svn log). So no difference for users like me.

The biggest difference is for developers. That's what I think should be the real disclaimer. I find mercurial's default public branches not the best for the kind of workflow I have in mind (which probably is the best to git, so probably is not the one you prefer), I've heard a few times that there's a mercurial extension for that default git behaviour (as for some others which aren't mercurial defaults but provided as official or not extensions). I like git's email patch system for sharing private work between developers not increasing with unfinished features the common official repository (which, if git with public branches, would need to have a branch for every feature developed and be pushed continuously so other interested developers could grab latest changes).

I think your tool should honour the best your workflow whichever it is and I think you already have that in mind so this was only to explain myself. I don't think there's anything new for those who will take the decision. That's why I think is a matter of taste now, your taste and priorities.

(obviously it's your decision, I won't post anything else and I didn't want to explain myself to this point because I find my opinion not so well informed and not so important as to be considered for such an important decision)

Sorry for the... brick? I don't know how to say very boring amount of repeatful speech in english, sorry .

[sinbad]

Thanks for the explanation. Actually when I say Mercurial has a shallower learning curve than Git for svn users, I'm talking about for developers & committers - you're right that if all you ever do is pull read-only copies, they're all pretty much the same.

If found Git's features in this area useful, but required more deliberate intention and 'savvy' by the developer to use in an organised fashion. The staging area and private local branches for example were both useful features in the right hands, but could also quite easily lead to mistakes if the developer isn't paying complete attention to what they're doing. I know many developers think they're so awesome as to be infallible, but they're not Mercurial is simpler in this regard:

• No staging - commits are direct from working copy to repository. I personally found staging to be useful in only a minority of cases because IMO proper testing can only occur on the precise combination of files you're about to commit - staging subsets invites the developer to make assumptions of separability, and they often get these wrong (see developers doing partial commits and forgetting some cross-dependencies). Conversely because of the staging, it's possible to forget to stage something and commit a subset of what you intended, especially if you're new.
• No local branches - if you want to separate some experimental work locally, you just do a local clone instead. You can also use the Local Branch extension which mimics Git, but I won't be advocating that - I actually found in practice a local clone more useful, because I most often wanted to keep a separate build in parallel for these local experiments anyway so it was more convenient.

So Mercurial does give the developer fewer tools, but I actually found that in practice this wasn't really a bad thing for busy developers. Even good developers get distracted, have a bad day, etc. The less variants the tools have, and the safer and more familiar the default behaviour, the less likely they are make a mistake, and I include myself in that. Yes I know that Git gives you the ability to 'undo' mistakes, but only if you haven't pushed them to the master repository yet.

I wasn't really sure about your comment regarding exchanging email patches between developers - Mercurial does this just fine too.

My preference for Mercurial in these issues is almost certainly influenced by being a development team manager in the past (not just on OGRE but in other teams too) as well as 'simply' a developer myself. I've seen otherwise very smart developers make very silly mistakes which cost the team time, so despite the fact that most devs believe they know 100% what they're doing all the time, I tend to favour systems that naturally require less conscious thought to get right, so long as they still do what I need. More features & more flexibility in this context aren't always a good thing. I don't expect any Linux advocates to ever agree with me on that one

[sinbad]

Oh, and I meant to say this earlier - I personally think that Git is more popular than Mercurial right now mostly because adoption of DVCSs has been led by Linux-oriented teams. I think as more people from other environments start to investigate DVCS more, particularly the millions of SVN users who would be baffled by hard-line Git advocates claims that SVN is completely useless for anything, Mercurial uptake is going to increase even more. CodePlex for example just took the plunge with offering Mercurial support. I honestly think that Mercurial is likely to emerge as 'the DVCS for the rest of us' because it's simply more approachable for the masses of workaday developers who don't obsess over these things and just want to get on with regular work.

[stealth977]

I just wanted to share my experience with Hg:

- We rsynced SVN
- We converted it to Hg
- We simply cloned our repository out of it
- Downloaded Tortoise Hg
- Cloned my copy of repository
- Made changes, submitted after a few glitches while trying to learn how it works, i felt quite familiar with it

thats it... No headaches, no manual digging, no history lost, nothing...

Thats what I posted when this discussion started, i am no evangelist, no pro-user, nothing, just one guy out of the crowd. Now i am glad to see OGRE community has similar motives to select HG. I never say Git is not adequate, all i ever wanted to say is, HG is easier to start with, SVN users can easily get familiar with and has the same common capabilities which we use %95 of the time, the rest %5 just doesnt worth the trouble...

[guyver6]

If I still may have an cent or two in a discussion... You'll see that some day new DVCS will emerge that will include best of both worlds: Git performance, efficient storage and local branches with Mercurial user interface, cross-platform (read: Windows) support and core developers not blinded by their love for Linux and it will be called Gitcurial or Mercurgit .

Back to topic: is there any estimate on the Ogre's switch to Mercurial (roughly like in a week or in a month)?

[Klaim]

If I still may have an cent or two in a discussion... You'll see that some day new DVCS will emerge that will include best of both worlds: Git performance, efficient storage and local branches with Mercurial user interface, cross-platform (read: Windows) support and core developers not blinded by their love for Linux and it will be called Gitcurial or Mercurgit .

...and a better way to support binary files would then make it "almost perfect"

[sinbad]

If I still may have an cent or two in a discussion... You'll see that some day new DVCS will emerge that will include best of both worlds: Git performance, efficient storage and local branches with Mercurial user interface, cross-platform (read: Windows) support and core developers not blinded by their love for Linux and it will be called Gitcurial or Mercurgit .

I'd be in heaven if that happened Everything I experienced when reviewing them said to me that if only you could take the best bits out of both, it would be perfect.

Back to topic: is there any estimate on the Ogre's switch to Mercurial (roughly like in a week or in a month)?

I'm aiming to do it later this month. I'm writing up some developer notes right now so core developers know the recommended approach to things, and I'm sorting out hosting with BitBucket now, who have been just awesome about everything, such as changing their policies on sizing when I asked about it and we were having concerns about the repo size (free plans are 1GB now and forks of other people's projects don't count towards that) and they've made sure we're on the fastest hardware shard for going live. Pull request management will be getting an overhaul later too, so we'll consider what that means for our patch management as and when that happens.

[sinbad]

Latest Mercurial test is here: https://bitbucket.org/sinbad/ogre-test/

All testing welcome - just make sure you have the Win32Text extension enabled in Windows if you want native line endings.

[jacmoe]

Instructions for that here:
http://wiki.ogitor.org/Mercurial#EOL_handling

Well, until the official Ogre Mercurial docs are online.

[Klaim]

I tried 3 times to clone it but there seem to be connecion errors after some time :

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requesting all changes
adding changesets
adding manifests
adding file changes
transaction abort!
rollback completed
[Errno None] connection ended unexpectedly

[command interrupted]

It worked with the previous test.

I am the only one having problems?

[jacmoe]

If using Mercurial 1.5, try enabling the progress extension:

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[extensions]
progress =

[Klaim]

I tried again several times and got several other errors. I think the server might have some problems?

I'll try with the extension, thanks.