4 ms·

A version is just a changeset, so for me, it makes little sense to claim "changes" are a completely different way of thinking than "versions". Perhaps it comes

by axod 17y ago

A version is just a changeset, so for me, it makes little sense to claim "changes" are a completely different way of thinking than "versions". Perhaps it comes down to how you divide work up. I just don't like branches. They're mess.

nuclear_eclipse 17y ago
I think the biggest conceptual difference between looking at "versions" versus "changes" is that versions imply a linear, static, and/or sequential history of revisions. By instead thinking of changes, you get a more open concept of a malleable history, in which you have more freedom to change histories or branches. Eg, if you want to split the development branch (trunk?) into two competing experiments, and then discard the losing branch at the end, a linear history of version/revision numbers split between two branches seems limiting IMO. Eg2, if you are working on a new feature or set of code that you haven't yet pushed to the server, having an open stack of changes gives you the freedom to modify and improve those changes without cluttering the commit history. When you're done, you simply push the finalized set of changes on top of the target branch.
- axod 17y ago
  For me though, the linear element of versions helps me since it mirrors how I work - linearly with a constantly increasing value of time.
  - aidenn0 17y ago
    So you never branch or merge?
    - axod 17y ago
      Extremely rarely. Only if I really have to. But even then, I still work linearly. A revision number makes sense for me.
      - blasdel 17y ago
        Mercurial will make up linear incrementing revision numbers for your repository, it's the only DCVS to do so.
        etal 17y ago
        Other than Bazaar. But Mercurial might be the only one to support both styles fully -- each changeset gets a hash and also a revision number for the branch.
  - dasil003 17y ago
    Actually what's happening is the way you work mirrors your tools. I spent years using CVS, then years using Subversion, now I have almost 2 years of git under my belt. There is something appealing about numbered versions, but there is no significant benefit over unique hashes of versions, or rather, any small benefits of sequential numbers is vastly outweighed by the tremendous benefits of unique hashes. I don't think any developer would disagree that the ideal workflow is to do one thing after another sequentially. It's just that in the real world, reasons come up where you might need to create topic branches. Even if you rarely need that functionality, there's no reason to stick with a crippled system like subversion unless you really need the one feature that it's entire design philosophy optimizes (partial checkouts) more than solid fundamental changeset tracking and manipulation. I'm no zealot—you won't catch me advocating linux vs mac, emacs vs vi, or ruby vs java. In most technology choices there is a wide range of tradeoffs and considerations. However Subversion is one of those rare cases where the tech is fundamentally flawed and serious developers need to move on, whether it be git, mercurial, darcs, or whatever. Subversion has a few use cases, and if you are not a professional developer then maybe it's deficiencies aren't very relevant. However, if you're slinging code all day, version control is your bread and butter, it will stay with you across languages and platforms, so it's insane to stick with a crippled platform that will always be that way due to fundamental design flaws.
    - abstractbill 17y ago
      Actually what's happening is the way you work mirrors your tools. I don't think so. I've been using git for about a year, and I still practically never branch or merge. Switching from task to task has a cognitive overhead that I prefer not to pay.
      - blasdel 17y ago
        You branch every time you pull, and merge every time you push, though in the simple linear case it will always be a fast-forward. Every repository is an independent branch.
- timr 17y ago
  The first example is a red herring, and the second really doesn't have anything to do with the change vs. revision dichotomy. If you want to split trunk into competing experiments (and eventually discard one) using a "traditional" RCS like Subversion, you can do that. Easily. Worrying about the linear history of rev numbers would be like worrying about the ordering of hash tags in git. Just ignore them -- you always can get the change history of the branch on which you're working. The second example is a feature provided by distributed version-control, not the choice of "changes" over "revisions". It's maybe easier to implement distributed version control with the former paradigm, but it's not impossible in either case.
raganwald 17y ago
> A version is just a changeset, so for me, it makes little sense to claim "changes" are a completely different way of thinking than "versions". This supports his point. If you think that a version is a changeset, as opposed to thinking of a version as a monolithic collection of files, you have already achieved enlightenment.
swannodette 17y ago
What about topic branches? You have a cool idea and you don't want to break the main line of work. You at the same time want history of the development of this new cool idea. You also want to be able to continue to bring in critical work from the main line of work. I don't know Mercurial but I imagine it can handle it as well as Git. It's this feature that you'd have to pry from my cold dead hands. SVN now feels like a straight-jacket to me even when I'm working solo.
- axod 17y ago
  >> "What about topic branches? You have a cool idea and you don't want to break the main line of work. You at the same time want history of the development of this new cool idea. You also want to be able to continue to bring in critical work from the main line of work." Why not just develop that new idea, without breaking the main line of work :/ Can you give an example of an idea you can't implement without breaking the main line of work?
  - eru 17y ago
    > Can you give an example of an idea you can't implement without breaking the main line of work? I guess you will always be able to refute any example. The important thing is: While you can put yourself under that restriction, you will pay for it.
abstractbill 17y ago
I don't like branches either (we've been using git for maybe a year now at justin.tv, so I've definitely had the opportunity to grow to like them). Actually I think one of the biggest reasons I don't like them is that they're a kind of "hidden state". If someone made a VCS (or just an interface to an existing VCS) where branches were just represented by different subdirectories in the filesystem, then I might use them more.
- blasdel 17y ago
  You can do that just fine with git: just make multiple independent checkouts in the filesystem. I do it all the time.
- spolsky 17y ago
  that's how it works in Mercurial, if you make your branches by cloning.
- lutorm 17y ago
  That is how branching works in svn, you make a copy to another directory on the repository.
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    I know how svn branching works - I don't think I explained myself clearly. I'd love a RCS that would let me see every branch that currently exists without having to check them out. The branches would exist as directories on my local filesystem. Any file operations (doing a directory listing, or accessing a file) on these local directories would actually be doing RCS commands and pulling data over the network, but I wouldn't have to think about that anymore.
    - lutorm 17y ago
      If you checkout the svn root, you get all the branches as directories in your local filesystem. After that, it seems it would be the same as what you're saying. Besides, you can do svn ls to see the branches. I must be missing what you're getting at.

by axod 17y ago

nuclear_eclipse 17y ago

I think the biggest conceptual difference between looking at "versions" versus "changes" is that versions imply a linear, static, and/or sequential history of revisions. By instead thinking of changes, you get a more open concept of a malleable history, in which you have more freedom to change histories or branches. Eg, if you want to split the development branch (trunk?) into two competing experiments, and then discard the losing branch at the end, a linear history of version/revision numbers split between two branches seems limiting IMO. Eg2, if you are working on a new feature or set of code that you haven't yet pushed to the server, having an open stack of changes gives you the freedom to modify and improve those changes without cluttering the commit history. When you're done, you simply push the finalized set of changes on top of the target branch.

axod 17y ago
For me though, the linear element of versions helps me since it mirrors how I work - linearly with a constantly increasing value of time.
- aidenn0 17y ago
  So you never branch or merge?
  - axod 17y ago
    Extremely rarely. Only if I really have to. But even then, I still work linearly. A revision number makes sense for me.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      Mercurial will make up linear incrementing revision numbers for your repository, it's the only DCVS to do so.
      - etal 17y ago
        Other than Bazaar. But Mercurial might be the only one to support both styles fully -- each changeset gets a hash and also a revision number for the branch.
- dasil003 17y ago
  Actually what's happening is the way you work mirrors your tools. I spent years using CVS, then years using Subversion, now I have almost 2 years of git under my belt. There is something appealing about numbered versions, but there is no significant benefit over unique hashes of versions, or rather, any small benefits of sequential numbers is vastly outweighed by the tremendous benefits of unique hashes. I don't think any developer would disagree that the ideal workflow is to do one thing after another sequentially. It's just that in the real world, reasons come up where you might need to create topic branches. Even if you rarely need that functionality, there's no reason to stick with a crippled system like subversion unless you really need the one feature that it's entire design philosophy optimizes (partial checkouts) more than solid fundamental changeset tracking and manipulation. I'm no zealot—you won't catch me advocating linux vs mac, emacs vs vi, or ruby vs java. In most technology choices there is a wide range of tradeoffs and considerations. However Subversion is one of those rare cases where the tech is fundamentally flawed and serious developers need to move on, whether it be git, mercurial, darcs, or whatever. Subversion has a few use cases, and if you are not a professional developer then maybe it's deficiencies aren't very relevant. However, if you're slinging code all day, version control is your bread and butter, it will stay with you across languages and platforms, so it's insane to stick with a crippled platform that will always be that way due to fundamental design flaws.
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    Actually what's happening is the way you work mirrors your tools. I don't think so. I've been using git for about a year, and I still practically never branch or merge. Switching from task to task has a cognitive overhead that I prefer not to pay.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      You branch every time you pull, and merge every time you push, though in the simple linear case it will always be a fast-forward. Every repository is an independent branch.
timr 17y ago
The first example is a red herring, and the second really doesn't have anything to do with the change vs. revision dichotomy. If you want to split trunk into competing experiments (and eventually discard one) using a "traditional" RCS like Subversion, you can do that. Easily. Worrying about the linear history of rev numbers would be like worrying about the ordering of hash tags in git. Just ignore them -- you always can get the change history of the branch on which you're working. The second example is a feature provided by distributed version-control, not the choice of "changes" over "revisions". It's maybe easier to implement distributed version control with the former paradigm, but it's not impossible in either case.

raganwald 17y ago

> A version is just a changeset, so for me, it makes little sense to claim "changes" are a completely different way of thinking than "versions". This supports his point. If you think that a version is a changeset, as opposed to thinking of a version as a monolithic collection of files, you have already achieved enlightenment.

swannodette 17y ago

What about topic branches? You have a cool idea and you don't want to break the main line of work. You at the same time want history of the development of this new cool idea. You also want to be able to continue to bring in critical work from the main line of work. I don't know Mercurial but I imagine it can handle it as well as Git. It's this feature that you'd have to pry from my cold dead hands. SVN now feels like a straight-jacket to me even when I'm working solo.

axod 17y ago
>> "What about topic branches? You have a cool idea and you don't want to break the main line of work. You at the same time want history of the development of this new cool idea. You also want to be able to continue to bring in critical work from the main line of work." Why not just develop that new idea, without breaking the main line of work :/ Can you give an example of an idea you can't implement without breaking the main line of work?
- eru 17y ago
  > Can you give an example of an idea you can't implement without breaking the main line of work? I guess you will always be able to refute any example. The important thing is: While you can put yourself under that restriction, you will pay for it.

abstractbill 17y ago

I don't like branches either (we've been using git for maybe a year now at justin.tv, so I've definitely had the opportunity to grow to like them). Actually I think one of the biggest reasons I don't like them is that they're a kind of "hidden state". If someone made a VCS (or just an interface to an existing VCS) where branches were just represented by different subdirectories in the filesystem, then I might use them more.

blasdel 17y ago
You can do that just fine with git: just make multiple independent checkouts in the filesystem. I do it all the time.
spolsky 17y ago
that's how it works in Mercurial, if you make your branches by cloning.
lutorm 17y ago
That is how branching works in svn, you make a copy to another directory on the repository.
- abstractbill 17y ago
  I know how svn branching works - I don't think I explained myself clearly. I'd love a RCS that would let me see every branch that currently exists without having to check them out. The branches would exist as directories on my local filesystem. Any file operations (doing a directory listing, or accessing a file) on these local directories would actually be doing RCS commands and pulling data over the network, but I wouldn't have to think about that anymore.
  - lutorm 17y ago
    If you checkout the svn root, you get all the branches as directories in your local filesystem. After that, it seems it would be the same as what you're saying. Besides, you can do svn ls to see the branches. I must be missing what you're getting at.