4 ms·

Branching is much, much more expensive in SVN than git (or any DVCS.) If you haven't grasped the immense value of cheap branches, nothing is going to make the i

Branching is much, much more expensive in SVN than git (or any DVCS.) If you haven't grasped the immense value of cheap branches, nothing is going to make the inherent added complexity of DVCS (of which git has more than most, to be sure) sound good to you. I branch at least several times a day when working on a project in git, and often throw them away quite soon afterward.

timr 18y ago
"If you haven't grasped the immense value of cheap branches..." Why does every defense of Git seem to begin with a personal attack on the intelligence and knowledge of the critic? Trust me -- I understand the value of branches. I branch frequently in Subversion, and have never had problems (however "heavy" the branches may have been). The primary feature of Git is distributed development, not branching.
- rmaccloy 18y ago
  'Grasped the immense value of...' isn't any more of a personal attack than 'apparently a lot of git users haven't heard...' :) Branches (in the sense of SVN, p4, etc) are a subset of the functionality that distributed development entails (local history, cheap copy operations, fast merge, etc). You can get a ton of mileage out of git, hg, etc without any distributed collaborators. The point remains, branching in SVN is much more expensive. There's no comparison.
  - timr 18y ago
    'Grasped the immense value of...' isn't any more of a personal attack than 'apparently a lot of git users haven't heard...' Touché.
- jrockway 18y ago
  Why does every defense of Git seem to begin with a personal attack on the intelligence and knowledge of the critic? Because nearly every argument I've heard against Git has been stupid or just plain wrong. It isn't necessarily true that a person making a stupid argument is stupid, but it seems to be true more often than not. I am usually aim for something a bit more civil than "you're stupid", but I've certainly thought that very loudly when reading criticisms of Git. I gave a Git talk at a local user group meeting recently. One audience member was deeply upset about "git reset" and how Git should never be used because of that feature. I thought to myself, "I guess you never use the backspace key either." (And of course said, you can easily delete commits with Subversion. svnadmin dump, edit the dump in your text editor, svnadmin load. I have done this to correct bad merges in the past -- deleting commits is much easier than living with a dumb mistake for the rest of my life.) Anyway, I think my point is that a lot of people are afraid of anything new, and they come up with dumb arguments to convince themselves that the new thing is bad. Git is very new, and version control is a touchy subject, so a lot of bad (and ignorant) arguments come up. It is really sad, actually. When I discover a new way of thinking that makes my life easier, I don't get upset. My life has become more enjoyable... why would I not want that!?
  - timr 18y ago
    "Because nearly every argument I've heard against Git has been stupid or just plain wrong. It isn't necessarily true that a person making a stupid argument is stupid, but it seems to be true more often than not." When you find yourself thinking this, it's a good sign that you need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and think a little harder about your opponent's arguments.
    - jrockway 18y ago
      Thanks for reading the rest of my comment. Perhaps you should "take a step back, take a deep breath, and think a little harder".
  - ohhmaagawd 18y ago
    all right, my argument against git is 1) no HTTP auth (ssh only) 2) no decent windows implementation
    - jrockway 18y ago
      That's nice, but I don't think we are having that argument right now.

timr 18y ago

"If you haven't grasped the immense value of cheap branches..." Why does every defense of Git seem to begin with a personal attack on the intelligence and knowledge of the critic? Trust me -- I understand the value of branches. I branch frequently in Subversion, and have never had problems (however "heavy" the branches may have been). The primary feature of Git is distributed development, not branching.

rmaccloy 18y ago
'Grasped the immense value of...' isn't any more of a personal attack than 'apparently a lot of git users haven't heard...' :) Branches (in the sense of SVN, p4, etc) are a subset of the functionality that distributed development entails (local history, cheap copy operations, fast merge, etc). You can get a ton of mileage out of git, hg, etc without any distributed collaborators. The point remains, branching in SVN is much more expensive. There's no comparison.
- timr 18y ago
  'Grasped the immense value of...' isn't any more of a personal attack than 'apparently a lot of git users haven't heard...' Touché.
jrockway 18y ago
Why does every defense of Git seem to begin with a personal attack on the intelligence and knowledge of the critic? Because nearly every argument I've heard against Git has been stupid or just plain wrong. It isn't necessarily true that a person making a stupid argument is stupid, but it seems to be true more often than not. I am usually aim for something a bit more civil than "you're stupid", but I've certainly thought that very loudly when reading criticisms of Git. I gave a Git talk at a local user group meeting recently. One audience member was deeply upset about "git reset" and how Git should never be used because of that feature. I thought to myself, "I guess you never use the backspace key either." (And of course said, you can easily delete commits with Subversion. svnadmin dump, edit the dump in your text editor, svnadmin load. I have done this to correct bad merges in the past -- deleting commits is much easier than living with a dumb mistake for the rest of my life.) Anyway, I think my point is that a lot of people are afraid of anything new, and they come up with dumb arguments to convince themselves that the new thing is bad. Git is very new, and version control is a touchy subject, so a lot of bad (and ignorant) arguments come up. It is really sad, actually. When I discover a new way of thinking that makes my life easier, I don't get upset. My life has become more enjoyable... why would I not want that!?
- timr 18y ago
  "Because nearly every argument I've heard against Git has been stupid or just plain wrong. It isn't necessarily true that a person making a stupid argument is stupid, but it seems to be true more often than not." When you find yourself thinking this, it's a good sign that you need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and think a little harder about your opponent's arguments.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    Thanks for reading the rest of my comment. Perhaps you should "take a step back, take a deep breath, and think a little harder".
- ohhmaagawd 18y ago
  all right, my argument against git is 1) no HTTP auth (ssh only) 2) no decent windows implementation
  - jrockway 18y ago
    That's nice, but I don't think we are having that argument right now.