
Subversion sucks, get over it  - nickb
http://andreasjacobsen.com/2008/10/26/subversion-sucks-get-over-it/
======
axod
I don't get all the continual subversion hate lately. Is it really that
important? Maybe if you have 100 contributers to your open source project it
starts to make sense, It's just becoming a bit tiresome reading the same old
lists of why subversion sucks and why git is the best thing since sliced
bread.

Different tools suit different uses. Git seems good for open source tons of
developers tons of patches/branches etc.

~~~
cstejerean
"Git seems good for open source tons of developers tons of patches/branches
etc."

If that's all Git seems good for I recommend you spend more time playing with
it (or Mercurial if you want). There are many benefits to using something like
Git even if you're not going to share the work with anyone.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Why?

Why not just use it for the features you need?

I mean, if you spend a lot of time researching features that you are not
currently using, and you are currently maintaining your code enough to reach
your goals, aren't you just wasting your time?

~~~
cstejerean
I hate to use the cliche of Ford and the faster horse, but sometimes figuring
out whether or not you _need_ something involves trying it. It's very easy to
dismiss things you're not familiar with as things you don't need. For the
longest time for example I thought I didn't need the power of Emacs. I finally
tried it for Lisp development and now it's definitely something I need.
Similarly back when I used Windows I didn't think I needed Linux for anything.

I've felt similarly about Git. I'm orders of magnitude more productive than
when I used svn. To me the time investment has been well worth it.

~~~
jacobscott
For me, there's a modest amount of activation energy associated with trying a
new SCM. For work, there's an INCREDIBLY large amount of activation energy to
move all of the developers, scripts, etc, off svn (although we don't develop
open source).

I think "you just need to try it" is the wrong approach. I want to know /why/
I should try it. I want to see my work flows called out and the minutes/hours
I will save by switching from svn to git explained clearly. Svn certainly has
its pain points, but I haven't seen a concise, easily digestible outline of
what git (or its ilk) will get me.

~~~
silentbicycle
Branching off of your argument, there's a significant amount of activation
energy to start a new svn repo, compared to mercurial or git. I find that when
all I need to do upfront is type "hg init", I end up using VC for far more.
For example, all the dotfiles in my home directory, my window manager setup (a
somewhat-patched dwm), and my bin dir are in an hg repo. It makes "moving in"
to a new computer (and syncing with my laptop) much easier.

You can use mercurial as if it were svn, just an svn that isn't a pain in the
ass to set up, and that makes free backups for you automatically. Anything
past that is just a bonus.

~~~
andrewf

      andrew-desktop:~/x> svnadmin create ~/repo/x
      andrew-desktop:~/x> svn import file:///home/andrew/repo/x/trunk
      Adding         y
      Adding         y/example.yy
      Adding         example.txt
      
      Committed revision 1.
    

Sure, it's about 10 times as many keystrokes, but it's not a great burden.

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DanielBMarkham
There was a recent comment on here that was something like "I can see why you
were downmodded, liking Quickbooks and all, but..."

WTF is up with all of this brand-clanning? As long I use an OS, have a SCM
system, use some sort of accounting package, etc -- do we really want to gang
up and make some kind of decision as a herd? Most products on the marketplace
do most of the things we want them to do.

I've been using Subversion for a small effort with 4 programmers for the last
six months or so. Works fine. I love P2P apps, but the argument made on this
site was unpersuasive.

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sunkencity
I like git, but until there's a compelling version for Windows there's no
chance in hell it can be used to replace subversion. We have mostly Linux and
OS X machines at work but we do need to do some development in windows to run
emulators and such. Also what about all version controlled challenged that use
Eclipse or Tortoise to work with the repository - how would they handle git?

Also lol have everything in a separate repository. Who wants to maintain a
list of repositories? Oh, no to check out THAT project you need to go to
repository X... when people have trouble remembering a single subversion URL.

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charlesju
I would have liked a comparison of the same problems in Git, which seems to be
the version control system that is taking over SVN's reign as king.

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ajkirwin
Arrogant much?

