

Git vs Mercurial: Why Git? - LeafStorm
http://blogs.atlassian.com/2012/03/git-vs-mercurial-why-git/

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LeafStorm
I think the comparison of "Mercurial vs. Git" with "vim vs. emacs" is actually
quite apt in this case. Both version control systems are better at different
things - Git has more opportunities to do advanced things out of the box, and
Mercurial has better portability and ease of use - and they both are designed
with different principles in mind - Git with the Perlish "There is more than
one way to do it," and Mercurial with the Pythonic "There should be one - and
preferably only one - obvious way to do it."

And as with vim and emacs, you have people on both sides who vehemently claim
that _their_ tool is objectively better, when really it's a case of the two
tools having different design goals and strengths in different areas.

The difference between "Mercurial vs. Git" and "vim vs. emacs" is that a
person's choice of editor is largely independent of other people's choice in
editors, and ideally your choice in VCS would be similar. But with a version
control system you have network effects - if you want to contribute to a
project using Git, you use Git, and vice versa. And because a few high-profile
projects like Linux and Rails went with Git, Git had the stronger network
effects, and ended up with a far greater share of users.

I could easily imagine everything going the other way if Linus or DHH had
picked Mercurial instead of Git. So Git users need to stop assuming that the
reason Git is so popular is because it's a better tool than Mercurial - it
lets you do more things, yes, but that doesn't necessarily translate to
"better." (Neither is Mercurial "better" than Git - it's more portable and the
UI is smoother, but that also doesn't necessarily translate to "better.")

~~~
charlesofarrell
[Original blogger here]

I think there is much truth in what you say. It would be interesting to
imagine what may have happened had Rails not gone with Git (and had GitHub not
been so slick). I can't speak for anyone else, but for _me_ personally Git
being more "powerful" was most definitely a deciding factor in switching from
Mercurial. And then of course I've influenced people at the places I've worked
to use it too, and so on...

"Better" is obviously a loose term as you point out; although I do think that
there people who sometimes misunderstand Git. Like claiming it "changes"
history and therefore it must be dangerous. I often find many people don't
even know about the reflog, which I think is a crucial aspect of using Git and
knowing that you're history is relatively safe once you commit. I suppose I'm
hoping the article will dispel some of these myths, or at least paint a
clearer picture.

