Re: What is your preferred VCS?

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

deadlyhead <deadlyhead@gmail.com> writes on comp.lang.ada:
> From this small-but-elite sample, it seems like Monotone and Git are
> the routes to check out more deeply, if for no other reasons than
> speed and code security.  Developers seem to trust them!

That is also my conclusion.  I prefer Monotone.

> For those who like Monotone: is using a "real database" really that
> much of advantage?  I'm a bit leery of such an opaque system being
> used to save my patches.  Having physical file-system access to
> changes makes _me_ feel a bit more secure, and is something that I
> really like about GNU Arch.  Is it the speed that makes it good?  Or
> collision detection? I'm just curious; I've never had problems in
> those areas before, so I'm a bit insensitive.

I like the fact that a database is a single file.

I like the fact that this single file is outside working trees; I can
thus safely "rm -rf" a working tree without losing the database.  Also,
I share my databases between multiple working trees.

I like to be able to use the SQLite command-line interface to run SQL
queries on it; this is much easier than a specialized set pf VC-specific
commands if you need to get at the data from outside Monotone.  In fact,
Monotone has the "mtn db execute <SQL_Statement>" for that purpose.

I like the attitude of the Monotone developers.  They have an extensive
test suite which they run systematically and extend with each new
feature.  Similarly the excellent documentation is in sync with the code
base.  While git started out as a quick hack developed over a couple of
days, monotone did the Right Thing from the onset, fosusing on
performance only afterwards (and performance is very good nowadays).

> And those who like Git:  Fast, cheap and easy...

Personally, I do not find git easy at all.  Monotone is much easier to
understand and use IMHO.  The sheer number of commands and options in
git is daunting; there are redundancies, overlaps and idiosyncrasies in
this command set (e.g. does anyone on comp.lang.ada understand the
subtle difference between git-merge-base and git-show-branch
--merge-base ?)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.