On Thursday 2007 April 19 12:59, Marcin Kasperski wrote: > > but git is definitely no harder to learn > > than anything else. I browsed through the mecurial tutorial > > yesterday - and as well as being significantly less powerful than git, > > it's no easier. > > Mercurial is easier to learn, because it has better docs and slightly > simpler command line (all those -a, -p, ... options which one always > forgets to add). I tried it. > In fact, I did the experiment about month ago. I wanted to give a try > to distributed vc tool. I started from GIT, played a bit with it, and > abandoned it because a) I did not know whether I am expected to use git, > or cg, b) While reading docs many times I had the feeling that something > strange and unclear is going behind the hood. In terms of normal operation, there aren't many switches one actually needs to remember. The only one I can think of is "-a" for commit - however, that's just to make it work like mercurial - a seasoned git user won't use many switches. My daily grind consists of git add file.c git commit git add file.c git commit git add -i git commit (Interactive mode for git-add is a joy to use - I don't know if Mercurial has anything similar). Now, to your point. I think you're right. What I said was that git actually is easier; however if you looked at some of the documentation you would incorrectly assume that that was not the case. > > (I can't believe this one - if you want to branch a mercurial repository > > you have to have another complete checkout. Erm... the checkout takes > > up more space than the repository - why do I need another copy? Anyway, > > git is no harder than Mercurial here) > > AFAIK you are wrong, they are able to link some files while cloning, so Can't be. I'm talking about the working directory not the repository - if the files are linked back to the originals, then it's not a separately editable set of files is it? > you loose space only if you switch machine or filesystem. Also, recent > mercurial has initial within-repo branches support. But I am not really > the best person to conduct git-vs-hg discussion. I'm glad that Mercurial is getting in-repo branches, they're great. I really wouldn't want to live without them now I have them. > > "(Note for Windows users: Mercurial is missing a merge program" - that > > Windows support isn't looking quite so hot now. > > Mercurial on windows works well with kdiff3 or tortoisemerge, you must > only install one of them. Aren't they manual merge tools? I think "merge" is for merging automatically, and moaning about conflicts if they turn up - /then/ you go to tortoisemerge. > As I said, I am not conducting hg-vs-git discussion. I just happened > to introduce and manage VC system in corporate environment, so I am able > to point that this is important feature. I appreciate that - I don't want to start a fight. My point should probably have been more directly focussed on git (which was what I wanted to do) - it's my opinion that git is in fact easier than Mercurial; however, it's public face is not letting people see that. > > As for permissions, well Shawn has often spoken of his hook scripts that > > implement very strong permissions (and he has done so again in this > > thread). > > I am not quite sure how can you forbid johny to see the code > in ./secret, while johny must checkout whole repo... Me either - the only permissions that could have been relevant are those needed to push to the central repository. As I said, git can cope there without trouble. > Permissions are not only about writing. That one is true - perhaps one day git will get partial clone support to match it's shallow clones - then it would be possible to put permissions on the read of a central repository. Can Mercurial do that? > > Depends what you want - I installed cygwin > > This is really not an option for typical windows user. Believe me. > Maybe it could be, if cygwin managed to create normal setup program > one day... I'm not an expert in Windows by any means - all I did was run setup.exe and picked git and ssh from the list. It doesn't get much easier. > Let me retype it: I am not complaining. GIT developers are not forced to > think about win users, or about corporate needs. But if they are, it is > reasonable to know the problems. Absolutely - I certainly haven't taken anything you've written as a complaint. If anything I find it interesting because I think it confirms what I thought - git is not short on features or usability, it's just got a PR problem. Andy -- Dr Andy Parkins, M Eng (hons), MIET andyparkins@xxxxxxxxx - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html