

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

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

~~~
silentbicycle
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
_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
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.

------
kaens
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.

------
DenisM
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.

~~~
utx00
you may want to take a look at
[http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-
submodul...](http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-
submodule.html). mercurial lacks this as of now.

~~~
bretthoerner
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/>

~~~
DenisM
there is no documentation at all...

~~~
anthonyb
Most things can be found on the Mercurial repository:

[http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/ForestExtens...](http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/ForestExtension)

Not sure why there are no docs in the hgforest repository though - that seems
like a pretty big oversight.

------
thomasmallen
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.

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

~~~
tednaleid
I tend to think that this is the case as well. If you look at the GitHub
Language Stats (<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-
so...](http://naleid.com/blog/2008/11/25/my-mercurial-setup-plus-some-useful-
shims-and-jigs/)).

There's buzz out there about mercurial, it's just hard to hear over the
cacaphony being caused by git.

------
DougBTX
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
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7724296011317502612>

is a Google Tech Talk by one of the main Mercurial developers.

------
schtog
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.

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

~~~
delano
Technically git is a wash? What do you mean?

~~~
mhartl
The phrase "it's a wash" in this context means that Git and Mercurial are
essentially equal.

------
delano
<http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/>

~~~
siong1987
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/> .

At least, BitBucket offers at least one private repo for free accounts.

~~~
pjhyett
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."

------
ken
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.

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

------
bkbleikamp
When is MercurialHub.com launching?

~~~
st3fan
Check out <http://www.bitbucket.org> \- it's awesome.

------
aupajo
Try both, choose for yourself.

