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For me, there's a modest amount of activation energy associated with trying a new SCM. For work, there's an INCREDIBLY large amount of activation energy to move

For me, there's a modest amount of activation energy associated with trying a new SCM. For work, there's an INCREDIBLY large amount of activation energy to move all of the developers, scripts, etc, off svn (although we don't develop open source). I think "you just need to try it" is the wrong approach. I want to know /why/ I should try it. I want to see my work flows called out and the minutes/hours I will save by switching from svn to git explained clearly. Svn certainly has its pain points, but I haven't seen a concise, easily digestible outline of what git (or its ilk) will get me.

silentbicycle 18y ago
Branching off of your argument, there's a significant amount of activation energy to start a new svn repo, compared to mercurial or git. I find that when all I need to do upfront is type "hg init", I end up using VC for far more. For example, all the dotfiles in my home directory, my window manager setup (a somewhat-patched dwm), and my bin dir are in an hg repo. It makes "moving in" to a new computer (and syncing with my laptop) much easier. You can use mercurial as if it were svn, just an svn that isn't a pain in the ass to set up, and that makes free backups for you automatically. Anything past that is just a bonus.
- andrewf 18y ago
  andrew-desktop:~/x> svnadmin create ~/repo/x andrew-desktop:~/x> svn import file:///home/andrew/repo/x/trunk Adding y Adding y/example.yy Adding example.txt Committed revision 1. Sure, it's about 10 times as many keystrokes, but it's not a great burden.
cstejerean 18y ago
Actually there is zero effort required to use git in an environment that already uses svn, git integrates incredibly well with svn. "I want to know /why/ I should try it. I want to see my work flows called out and the minutes/hours I will save by switching from svn to git explained clearly." Sounds like you're waiting for a salesperson. Good luck with that.
- jacobscott 18y ago
  Maybe salesperson shouldn't be a dirty word then. I think the burden is on the creator (and or proponents) of software to explain to others why they should use it. Would you argue otherwise?

silentbicycle 18y ago

Branching off of your argument, there's a significant amount of activation energy to start a new svn repo, compared to mercurial or git. I find that when all I need to do upfront is type "hg init", I end up using VC for far more. For example, all the dotfiles in my home directory, my window manager setup (a somewhat-patched dwm), and my bin dir are in an hg repo. It makes "moving in" to a new computer (and syncing with my laptop) much easier. You can use mercurial as if it were svn, just an svn that isn't a pain in the ass to set up, and that makes free backups for you automatically. Anything past that is just a bonus.

andrewf 18y ago
andrew-desktop:~/x> svnadmin create ~/repo/x andrew-desktop:~/x> svn import file:///home/andrew/repo/x/trunk Adding y Adding y/example.yy Adding example.txt Committed revision 1. Sure, it's about 10 times as many keystrokes, but it's not a great burden.

cstejerean 18y ago

Actually there is zero effort required to use git in an environment that already uses svn, git integrates incredibly well with svn. "I want to know /why/ I should try it. I want to see my work flows called out and the minutes/hours I will save by switching from svn to git explained clearly." Sounds like you're waiting for a salesperson. Good luck with that.

jacobscott 18y ago
Maybe salesperson shouldn't be a dirty word then. I think the burden is on the creator (and or proponents) of software to explain to others why they should use it. Would you argue otherwise?