5 ms·

Ask HN: Why is there so much talk about git but little about mercurial

12 points by geeko 18y ago

Is git fundamentally/technically better than mercurial or is it better marketing? Has mercurial failed?

delano 18y ago
http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/ http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/
- siong1987 18y ago
  It is not true that hg doesn't have something similar like github. Hg has a better Github which is BitBucket - http://www.bitbucket.org/ http://www.bitbucket.org/ . At least, BitBucket offers at least one private repo for free accounts.
  - pjhyett 18y ago
    The following is written on the site: "And no, BitBucket doesn't count just because they ripped off GitHub screen for screen. When they are 30 times bigger and I hear that anyone choose Mercurial over something else because of the community on BitBucket, then I'll reconsider. Launchpad for Bazaar is closer, but they're still a fraction of the size, nor have I heard of anyone leaning towards Bzr because of the incredible Launchpad community they want to take part in. However, as they are more legitimate, I've removed the 'bzr' flag from this argument."
illume 18y ago
hg is easier to type than git. That's 33% better at least(with integer percentages, it's event better with float percentages... and even better with fractions). Imagine typing git 20 times? Well can you see it now? Good. NOW, imagine typing hg 20 times, that is 60 keys pressed, VS only 40 keys. You'll probably make less errors with 2 keys too. git didn't bring anything new to version control... with it's 3 key system. svn had 3 letters, cvs even had 3 letters. However hg has brought a 33% improvement to version control -- with it's revolutionary 2 letter system. Obviously a break through. Obviously fucking cool.
- bkbleikamp 18y ago
  I aliased "g" to "git" - problem solved + g is 50% better than hg, right?
  - hs 18y ago
    i aliased "" to "hg" ... oh wait ...
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  You forgot about "git commit" vs. "hg ci". The real reason is that git has Linus behind it, of course, and the fiasco with BitKeeper attracted a lot of attention. This led to tremendous buzz, and then the Ruby / Rails communities* (among others) started spreading and amplifying it. I see tons of blog posts about how git is the best thing ever, and it's a freaking version control system, you know? It's sort of like if people suddenly got singing-and-dancing-in-the-streets excited over a somewhat better version of make, or something. Think about that. There are other DVCSs that are also quite good (I like Mercurial, for one), but a pretty good version control system can't compete with a pretty good version control system with a tidal wave of hype. * Also, since the Rails people are themselves working on a popular web development system, they probably had a disproportionately large amount of influence among bloggers in tech circles.
  - bayareaguy 18y ago
    It's sort of like if people suddenly got singing-and-dancing-in-the-streets excited over a somewhat better version of make I'd sing and dance for a somewhat better version of make that doesn't end up causing me more problems over time then it solves.
    - silentbicycle 18y ago
      I meant people in general, not programmers specifically. People who wouldn't generally care about something like a VC system are excited about git because Linus is talking it up, I think.
- 18y ago
neilc 18y ago
Mostly it is just hype/marketing: technically, it's a wash.
- delano 18y ago
  Technically git is a wash? What do you mean?
  - mhartl 18y ago
    The phrase "it's a wash" in this context means that Git and Mercurial are essentially equal.
zacharydanger 18y ago
The answer you're looking for is that the cool and/or hip Rails kids decided to back git.
- tednaleid 18y ago
  I tend to think that this is the case as well. If you look at the GitHub Language Stats (http://github.com/languages http://github.com/languages) you'll see that Ruby takes up 38% of all lines of code on GitHub. JavaScript takes up another 25%. Python's only at 6% and Java, C++ and C files combined are only 8% of the total LOC. Git actually is a nice tool and it's getting quite a bit better, but I prefer mercurial, and I think that it's an easier tool for devs used to SVN to make the switch. A few weeks ago, I threw together a blog post detailing how I use mercurial (http://naleid.com/blog/2008/11/25/my-mercurial-setup-plus-some-useful-shims-and-jigs/ http://naleid.com/blog/2008/11/25/my-mercurial-setup-plus-so...). There's buzz out there about mercurial, it's just hard to hear over the cacaphony being caused by git.
thomasmallen 18y ago
Mercurial is widely used... > Has mercurial failed? I'm not sure why you equate hype with success. Anyway, Hg is an awesome tool. I love FreeHg too. I use it to manage my .vim/vimfiles, amongst other things.
DenisM 18y ago
Alas neither can support effective work in large repositories: at my day job we have about 100gb repository (just one branch), but most people only use 4Gb at a time. Except the build servers - they get the most of the stuff at once. Perforce lets you create partial enlistment and only get the 4gb you need, while both Git and Hg require pulling entire 100Gb over the network. There's been very little progress on these issues as well - both communities seem to be content with relatively small repositories. Sad.
- thorax 18y ago
  I'm also a big fan of Perforce for large (especially internal) repositories. It handles just about everything smoothly and is also free for Open Source. That being said, I've really been enjoying working with Mercurial. I think the biggest shortcoming I feel is not being able to branch (easily?) subdirectories rather than repositories.
- utx00 18y ago
  you may want to take a look at http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-submodule.html http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-submodul.... mercurial lacks this as of now.
  - bretthoerner 18y ago
    Mercurial has extension support, and one of them (used for example on the OpenJDK project - a "real" project of some size) is "Forest", which does just that: http://www.bitbucket.org/pmezard/hgforest-crew/overview/ http://www.bitbucket.org/pmezard/hgforest-crew/overview/
    - DenisM 18y ago
      there is no documentation at all...
      - anthonyb 18y ago
        Most things can be found on the Mercurial repository: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/ForestExtension http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/ForestExtens... Not sure why there are no docs in the hgforest repository though - that seems like a pretty big oversight.
DougBTX 18y ago
I first heard about Git when the guy who wrote most of of stood up and did an empassioned Google Tech Talk about it. I'm loathe to pick it out as marketing, because that invites the idea that any communication is marketing communication. But communication is important, I've never heard a Mercurial dev get up and talk good about their project. Is git technically better? I have no idea, git works fine for me, someone will have to get up and point out why Hg is so great before I even try it.
- neilc 18y ago
  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7724296011317502612 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7724296011317502612 is a Google Tech Talk by one of the main Mercurial developers.
bkbleikamp 18y ago
When is MercurialHub.com launching?
- st3fan 18y ago
  Check out http://www.bitbucket.org http://www.bitbucket.org - it's awesome.
yesimahuman 18y ago
I love mercurial. Works on windows/linux too and bitbucket.org is great.
kaens 18y ago
Git gets talked about a lot because it's a good tool, and was written by Linus Torvalds - which basically ensures that a whole lot of people will try it out. Since it's pretty damn good at what it does, most of those people kept on using it.
ken 18y ago
What do you want us to say about it? I use it every day at work and at home, and it's a solid DVCS; I don't talk about grep (or any of my other tools), either, but that doesn't mean grep "failed". It could be where you hang out. I heard about Git a lot when I was using Rails, because Rails used it. I hear a lot about Github here on HN, because it's a cool web startup. If you go someplace where Hg is used (and there are some big projects) you see a very different picture.
schtog 18y ago
I never used a vcs before but tried git and it was very easy to use and together with github(which really is superawesome) it is truly super.
aupajo 18y ago
Try both, choose for yourself.

12 points by geeko 18y ago

Is git fundamentally/technically better than mercurial or is it better marketing? Has mercurial failed?

delano 18y ago

http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/ http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/

siong1987 18y ago
It is not true that hg doesn't have something similar like github. Hg has a better Github which is BitBucket - http://www.bitbucket.org/ http://www.bitbucket.org/ . At least, BitBucket offers at least one private repo for free accounts.
- pjhyett 18y ago
  The following is written on the site: "And no, BitBucket doesn't count just because they ripped off GitHub screen for screen. When they are 30 times bigger and I hear that anyone choose Mercurial over something else because of the community on BitBucket, then I'll reconsider. Launchpad for Bazaar is closer, but they're still a fraction of the size, nor have I heard of anyone leaning towards Bzr because of the incredible Launchpad community they want to take part in. However, as they are more legitimate, I've removed the 'bzr' flag from this argument."

illume 18y ago

hg is easier to type than git. That's 33% better at least(with integer percentages, it's event better with float percentages... and even better with fractions). Imagine typing git 20 times? Well can you see it now? Good. NOW, imagine typing hg 20 times, that is 60 keys pressed, VS only 40 keys. You'll probably make less errors with 2 keys too. git didn't bring anything new to version control... with it's 3 key system. svn had 3 letters, cvs even had 3 letters. However hg has brought a 33% improvement to version control -- with it's revolutionary 2 letter system. Obviously a break through. Obviously fucking cool.

bkbleikamp 18y ago
I aliased "g" to "git" - problem solved + g is 50% better than hg, right?
- hs 18y ago
  i aliased "" to "hg" ... oh wait ...
silentbicycle 18y ago
You forgot about "git commit" vs. "hg ci". The real reason is that git has Linus behind it, of course, and the fiasco with BitKeeper attracted a lot of attention. This led to tremendous buzz, and then the Ruby / Rails communities* (among others) started spreading and amplifying it. I see tons of blog posts about how git is the best thing ever, and it's a freaking version control system, you know? It's sort of like if people suddenly got singing-and-dancing-in-the-streets excited over a somewhat better version of make, or something. Think about that. There are other DVCSs that are also quite good (I like Mercurial, for one), but a pretty good version control system can't compete with a pretty good version control system with a tidal wave of hype. * Also, since the Rails people are themselves working on a popular web development system, they probably had a disproportionately large amount of influence among bloggers in tech circles.
- bayareaguy 18y ago
  It's sort of like if people suddenly got singing-and-dancing-in-the-streets excited over a somewhat better version of make I'd sing and dance for a somewhat better version of make that doesn't end up causing me more problems over time then it solves.
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    I meant people in general, not programmers specifically. People who wouldn't generally care about something like a VC system are excited about git because Linus is talking it up, I think.
18y ago

neilc 18y ago

Mostly it is just hype/marketing: technically, it's a wash.

delano 18y ago
Technically git is a wash? What do you mean?
- mhartl 18y ago
  The phrase "it's a wash" in this context means that Git and Mercurial are essentially equal.

zacharydanger 18y ago

The answer you're looking for is that the cool and/or hip Rails kids decided to back git.

tednaleid 18y ago
I tend to think that this is the case as well. If you look at the GitHub Language Stats (http://github.com/languages http://github.com/languages) you'll see that Ruby takes up 38% of all lines of code on GitHub. JavaScript takes up another 25%. Python's only at 6% and Java, C++ and C files combined are only 8% of the total LOC. Git actually is a nice tool and it's getting quite a bit better, but I prefer mercurial, and I think that it's an easier tool for devs used to SVN to make the switch. A few weeks ago, I threw together a blog post detailing how I use mercurial (http://naleid.com/blog/2008/11/25/my-mercurial-setup-plus-some-useful-shims-and-jigs/ http://naleid.com/blog/2008/11/25/my-mercurial-setup-plus-so...). There's buzz out there about mercurial, it's just hard to hear over the cacaphony being caused by git.

thomasmallen 18y ago

Mercurial is widely used... > Has mercurial failed? I'm not sure why you equate hype with success. Anyway, Hg is an awesome tool. I love FreeHg too. I use it to manage my .vim/vimfiles, amongst other things.

DenisM 18y ago

Alas neither can support effective work in large repositories: at my day job we have about 100gb repository (just one branch), but most people only use 4Gb at a time. Except the build servers - they get the most of the stuff at once. Perforce lets you create partial enlistment and only get the 4gb you need, while both Git and Hg require pulling entire 100Gb over the network. There's been very little progress on these issues as well - both communities seem to be content with relatively small repositories. Sad.

thorax 18y ago
I'm also a big fan of Perforce for large (especially internal) repositories. It handles just about everything smoothly and is also free for Open Source. That being said, I've really been enjoying working with Mercurial. I think the biggest shortcoming I feel is not being able to branch (easily?) subdirectories rather than repositories.
utx00 18y ago
you may want to take a look at http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-submodule.html http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-submodul.... mercurial lacks this as of now.
- bretthoerner 18y ago
  Mercurial has extension support, and one of them (used for example on the OpenJDK project - a "real" project of some size) is "Forest", which does just that: http://www.bitbucket.org/pmezard/hgforest-crew/overview/ http://www.bitbucket.org/pmezard/hgforest-crew/overview/
  - DenisM 18y ago
    there is no documentation at all...
    - anthonyb 18y ago
      Most things can be found on the Mercurial repository: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/ForestExtension http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/ForestExtens... Not sure why there are no docs in the hgforest repository though - that seems like a pretty big oversight.

DougBTX 18y ago

I first heard about Git when the guy who wrote most of of stood up and did an empassioned Google Tech Talk about it. I'm loathe to pick it out as marketing, because that invites the idea that any communication is marketing communication. But communication is important, I've never heard a Mercurial dev get up and talk good about their project. Is git technically better? I have no idea, git works fine for me, someone will have to get up and point out why Hg is so great before I even try it.

neilc 18y ago
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7724296011317502612 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7724296011317502612 is a Google Tech Talk by one of the main Mercurial developers.

bkbleikamp 18y ago

When is MercurialHub.com launching?

st3fan 18y ago
Check out http://www.bitbucket.org http://www.bitbucket.org - it's awesome.

yesimahuman 18y ago

I love mercurial. Works on windows/linux too and bitbucket.org is great.

kaens 18y ago

Git gets talked about a lot because it's a good tool, and was written by Linus Torvalds - which basically ensures that a whole lot of people will try it out. Since it's pretty damn good at what it does, most of those people kept on using it.

ken 18y ago

What do you want us to say about it? I use it every day at work and at home, and it's a solid DVCS; I don't talk about grep (or any of my other tools), either, but that doesn't mean grep "failed". It could be where you hang out. I heard about Git a lot when I was using Rails, because Rails used it. I hear a lot about Github here on HN, because it's a cool web startup. If you go someplace where Hg is used (and there are some big projects) you see a very different picture.

schtog 18y ago

I never used a vcs before but tried git and it was very easy to use and together with github(which really is superawesome) it is truly super.

aupajo 18y ago

Try both, choose for yourself.