2010/5/26 Hadley Wickham <had...@rice.edu>: >>> Yes, that's a very good point (although in my experience it takes a >>> very long time to do the initial download of the SVN repository). I'm >>> not an expert on these systems, but I imagine the main downside (other >>> than speed) of having SVN upstream is that you have to keep the >>> history linear, >> >> That (non-linear history) is IMHO the biggest drawback of DVCS because that >> means there is no way to link a particular build to the source status and >> you cannot use globally valid build numbers. > > Git (and I'm sure the others) provides a globally unique id for each > revision. Isn't that sufficient? > >> But feature branches are as easily (IMHO even more easily since you can >> closely monitor what others are contributing) worked on with SVN (routinely >> used with R) so I'm not sure what DVCS would buy you. > > Feature branches are _much_ easier with git - to the point where some > people suggest using a separate feature branch for every feature you > develop. > >> AFAICS the only benefit of DVCS is that if you are on a remote island >> without any internet connection you can accumulate multiple commits before >> merging them back. I can't say that I desperately need that functionality ;). > > You have never worked on an airplane or other location without > internet access? You must have lived a very privileged life ;)
Some people just have decent web access only at work, and if you work on your R project like at home or on the train, you're already having some difficulties. But please, not the airplane argument! (just joking...). Moreover, 'local' commits are way faster than network-based commits. I can testify: 1microsecond vs 1second delay (or more, depending on how crappy is your net access) *is* a big difference. On your local machine, you end up committing much more often, with smaller and self-contained commits, generally producing a cleaner history. fabio. > > Hadley > > > -- > Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair > Department of Statistics / Rice University > http://had.co.nz/ > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > -- Antonio Fabio Di Narzo, PhD. Swiss Institute for Bioinformatics - Bioinformatics Core Facility Office 2029, Génopode, Quartier Sorge CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Tel: +41 21 692 4087 Fax: +41 21 692 4065 ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
