Robert Osfield wrote:
I really don't have any doubt that we could do better with a more distributed version control system. I'm a bit daunted by the transition, as it will learning new tools and ways of working efficiently.
I see a lot of support here for Mercurial and Git, so I wanted to share a slightly different experience.
I have successfully done a few complex branch merges in svn. I didn't really find it to be unexpectedly difficult. If a file had changed on one branch but not on another, it merged easily; where the same lines had been modified on both branches, some manual intervention was required.
It's very easy to set up an Hg repo. Its distributed nature eliminates problems related to server outages. But merging repos (the DVCS analogue to merging a branch) is still merging. Files that change on one branch but not the other will merge easily with Hg; the same lines changed on both branches will still require manual intervention with Hg.
Hg does not come with a built-in merge tool. On *nix I believe it defaults to the system tool, but it's fairly easy to mis-configure Hg when setting up your personal favorite merge tool. Many view this configurability as a plus for Hg, but I have had headaches related to it, and had to help out other developers with similar headaches.
My advice is to use the tool you're familiar with or most comfortable with. This will depend on who will be doing the merging. One single VCS will not make merging easier for everyone.
-Paul _______________________________________________ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
