
Joel is wrong. Subversion does not equal leeches. - ahoyhere
http://blog.beanstalkapp.com/2010/03/18/sorry-joel-youre-wrong-subversion-does-not-equal-leeches/
======
mgrouchy
I don't see the part in this post where he supports the title/thesis of the
post. He clearly states

 _DVCS provides a much smarter workflow for merging and sharing code._ __

Just because it doesn't have a gui as sexy or user friendly as versions
doesn't mean the technology isn't better _which is the point_ of Joels quote

 _If you are using Subversion, stop it. Just stop. Subversion = Leeches.
Mercurial and Git = Antibiotics. We have better technology now._

The technology is better, just as antibiotics are better. However sometimes
the need still arises for leeches.

Aside: Both these posts are self serving posts about competing products.
Beanstalk vs. Kiln.

~~~
vog
_> Just because it doesn't have a gui as sexy or user friendly as versions
[...]_

Subversion's killer-app GUI is Tortoise, and Mercurial has a similar tool,
too: TortoiseHg. (<http://tortoisehg.bitbucket.org/>)

So I don't think this is really a GUI problem.

------
jmount
No Joel, is right. The Beanstalk goal mentioned in the linked article "Bring
version control into the development process for those who don’t use it" is
better served by Git, Mercurial, BZ. All of which make easier for two
developers (a small sub-team) to share code without needing a server
provisioned.

~~~
dasil003
I hesitate to say this because I actually have an anti-subversion rant in the
works, but I think he makes a good point here.

For any develop who is at all serious about their craft, it's absolutely
insane to go on using a crippled tool like subversion. However if you have a
team of talentless monkey coders mixed with a generous helping of non-
technical asset producers (designers, copywriters, etc), then modern VCS won't
really give you any compelling benefit, so you are likely better off taking
the better tooling.

In the long run Subversion would be better off if they just rewrote it on top
of git plumbing, but barring that, it's not necessarily true that everyone has
much to gain from modern VCSes.

~~~
jmount
I tried to like Subversion for quite a long while (any improvement on CVS
would be good). In the end the main differences from CVS were. 1: a repository
that (at the time) you could not delete "oops I checked in a DVD" from. 2: an
Eclipse module that broke during most Eclipse updates.

------
Tichy
Just because there are no shiny GUIs to git yet (are there? I don't know)?
Otherwise git seems to be easier to use to me. For one thing, it doesn't
pollute every directory with .svn folders.

I suppose you can use subversion standalone? It's been too long since I used
it. Anyway, with git just type "git init" and you are ready to go.

~~~
vijaydev
gitx, gitg, giggle.. I use gitg on my Ubuntu and gitx on my Mac. Love both,
though I use them less. Command line ftw!

------
dlsspy
> If we tried to accomplish the first goal (Bring version control into the
> development process for those who don’t use it.) with Git or Mercurial, most
> people would have been lost. With the lack of any decent GUI clients, a
> difficult mental model, and a less proven (read: newer) system this would
> have been near impossible.

According to github.com/home:

> Join 224,000 coders with over 733,000 repositories

Also, in a recent blog post, they said they're clocking about 109k commits per
day.

I'm not sure where beanstalk is there, but that's a few times larger than
google code (which also bet on subversion).

~~~
cnagele
I think you miss the point here. It's not about betting on one or the other,
it's about having options depending on your team or project.

------
iskander
I use SVN on a 2 person academic project. It works great, I've never had any
problems or complaints. Is there some compelling reason to switch to a
distributed VCS?

~~~
e40
I skipped over SVN on my way to Git from CVS, but I've heard the handling of
branches in SVN isn't much better than CVS, and there it is absolutely
horrible.

So, if you don't use branches it is understandable why you are happy with SVN.
If you want branches, you'll need Git something like it (HG).

~~~
iskander
Yep, we don't use branches. Maybe that's the reason everyone seems to have
such (otherwise mystifyingly) negative opinions of SVN.

------
ableal
_an entirely different audience appeared that we never expected: Designers.
[...] who use Beanstalk for binary files_

That. (And this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1201559> )

Not begrudging the coders kudos for a solution to _their_ problem. But
studiously ignoring wider application seems a bit short-sighted.

~~~
ableal
[... crickets ... a day later, back at the ranch: ]

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/biv72/why_git_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/biv72/why_git_aint_better_than_x/c0mztsa)

 _As a game developer, my repository is many gigabytes in size - consisting
mostly of binary data. Perforce handles it like a champ; it scales incredibly
well, even to the near-ridiculous volumes of data I need to build my
projects._

And first hit on a quick search: _It is well known that Google uses Perforce
as its internal source management system (it has a source license)._

So, obviously, it should be prescribed that everybody and his dog use a DVCS
good at merging changes on text files, which solves the problem of the subset
of people that:

1 - Hop around like rabbits, carrying their copy of the whole repository, and
previously had to mail each other patches.

2 - Only work on text files, code with barely any non-text documentation, like
top-dog kernel developers.

Good going.

