3 ms·

IMO the "Sharding versus Replicating" section sounds a little bit like someone is trying to sell me on a centralized VCS after I've already switched to and enjo

IMO the "Sharding versus Replicating" section sounds a little bit like someone is trying to sell me on a centralized VCS after I've already switched to and enjoy DVCS. And further down in the same section, it sounds like the author has confused Git itself, with the way Git is used developing the Linux kernel. Just because the Linux kernel devs use Git in a particular way doesn't mean Git encourages any one particular model over another. Does anyone know of a more technically accurate and less biased comparison?

jwecker 15y ago
WRT selling you on centralized VCS after you've switched to and enjoy DVCS: That was my immediate reaction, but I realized that there is a third thing. In a way, a git-like DVCS in most workflows still retains some of its 'centralized' state - that is, some repositories are the only repositories with certain branches etc. and often there is a specific repository on a server that has all branches "that matter" (such as a github account). As mentioned, Kernel developers need this to reduce clutter/noise and establish arbitrary hierarchies (that are, in a sense, centralized). This "third thing" is, in a way, even more decentralized than old-school CVS/SVN- in that all repositories truly become equal. I'm not saying it's better than git-style-DVCS- it's certainly not if you need an ad-hoc high branch-volume hierarchy- but I do think that it's an underdeveloped use-case that's neither centralized nor adhoc distributed that might (maybe not as Fossil per se) be very useful to many workflows. Put another way- how often do git workflows have you push/pull from multiple remotes when you're ready to deploy (or at all)? In the vast majority of workflows that I've seen and used you generally have one authoritative remote. Something like Fossil would make it so that a push/pull to any remote is effectively the same thing.

jwecker 15y ago

WRT selling you on centralized VCS after you've switched to and enjoy DVCS: That was my immediate reaction, but I realized that there is a third thing. In a way, a git-like DVCS in most workflows still retains some of its 'centralized' state - that is, some repositories are the only repositories with certain branches etc. and often there is a specific repository on a server that has all branches "that matter" (such as a github account). As mentioned, Kernel developers need this to reduce clutter/noise and establish arbitrary hierarchies (that are, in a sense, centralized). This "third thing" is, in a way, even more decentralized than old-school CVS/SVN- in that all repositories truly become equal. I'm not saying it's better than git-style-DVCS- it's certainly not if you need an ad-hoc high branch-volume hierarchy- but I do think that it's an underdeveloped use-case that's neither centralized nor adhoc distributed that might (maybe not as Fossil per se) be very useful to many workflows. Put another way- how often do git workflows have you push/pull from multiple remotes when you're ready to deploy (or at all)? In the vast majority of workflows that I've seen and used you generally have one authoritative remote. Something like Fossil would make it so that a push/pull to any remote is effectively the same thing.