[VOTE] git versus mercurial

[VOTE] git versus mercurial

[walt]

No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here
will know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd
project (www.dragonflybsd.org).

Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote
for your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group,
accessible via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org.

I've already cast my vote for git, which I confess is not very
honest because I've never even tried mercurial.  I would truly
be grateful to anyone here who knows both git and mercurial who
could contribute verifiable facts to that debate.

Thanks.

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

[Cc: gmane.comp.version-control.git,
     gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general]

walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:

> No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here
> will know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd
> project (www.dragonflybsd.org).
> 
> Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote
> for your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group,
> accessible via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org.
> 
> I've already cast my vote for git, which I confess is not very
> honest because I've never even tried mercurial.  I would truly
> be grateful to anyone here who knows both git and mercurial who
> could contribute verifiable facts to that debate.

I also used only Git, but I have read a bit about Mercurial; however
the information I have on Mercurial might be out of date.

Below I have tried to compare Git with Mercurial, pointing the most
important (to me) facts:

1. Documentation and ease of use. 

   Mercurial is supposedly better documented and easier to use; I
   think this descends from the early days of Git, where it was not
   very user friendly. IMHO Git has much improved since.  Mercurial
   had 'hgbook' from the beginning; Git User's Manual is more recent.

   I also think that ease of use is just different learning curve.
   I am also biased and I think that Mercurial starts easy, but it has
   more difficult things (like e.g. merging, multiple branches in
   single repository etc.) harder than it Git.

   I'll admit that Mercurial UI is better designed; Git UI was not as
   much designed as it evolved from 'stupid content tracker' to
   full-featured SCM, therefore there are a few oddities (for example
   git-revert might do not what you expect, if you are accustomed to
   Subversion UI).

2. Implementation, portability, bindings and extending

   Mercurial is implemented in Python, with core written in C for
   better performance.  It has a plugin system, and additional extra
   features implemented through extensions.  I don't know what is the
   status of bindings (or implementations) in other programming
   languages; but it has some API for use in extensions at least.

   Git is implemented as mixture of C, shell scripts, Perl and Tcl/Tk
   (for GUI).  The main way of extending it is by scripting around
   powerfull set of low level tools, called 'plumbing', meant to be
   used in scripts.  JGit is for example _reimplementation_ of Git in
   Java.

3. Repository design and performance.

   Git is designed around idea of content adressed object database;
   objects are adressed by their content (by SHA-1 of their type and
   content).  Commits for example have information about author and
   comitter, pointer to zero or more parent commits, and pointer to
   tree object (representing top directory in project).  Branches
   and tags are just pointers to DAG (Direct Acyclic Graph) of
   commits; current branch is denoted by HEAD pointer to branch.
   There is explicit staging area called 'index', used for conflict
   resolution dureing merges, and which can be used to make commit in
   stages, allow uncomitted changes in tree (in working directory).
   Git design supports very well multiple branches in single
   repository, and tracking changes in multiple remote repositories
   each with multiple branches.

   Mercurial, from what I have read of its documentation, and from the
   few discussion on #revctrl IRC channel, and from what I understand
   is based on changes stored per file, with information about files
   and their versions stored in manifest (flat) file, and with changes
   described in changelog-like file (changerev).  One of limitations
   of "record" database (as opposed to Git's object database) is that
   commits can have zero (root commit), one or two (merge commits)
   parents only.  There is apparent in design that Mercurial was
   developed with single branch per repository paradigm in mind.
   Local branches from what I understand are marked in CVS-like
   fashion using tags.  Tags are implemented as either local to
   repository and untransferable, or as .hgtags versioned file with
   special case treatment.  (But I'm obviously biased here).

   Git and Mercurial have similar performance, although it is thought
   that due to design Mercurla has faster patch applying and is
   optimized for cold cache case, while Git has faster merging and is
   optimized for warm cache case.

   Mercurial may have (or had) problems with larger binary files, from
   what I have heard.

3. Advanced features, interfaces and tools

   I don't know much about Mercurial beside basic usage, what I
   remember from 'hgbook', but I think that most if not all advanced
   Git features are available either in Mercurial core, or as
   Mercurial extensions (plugins).

   For example both Git and Mercurial have bisect command for finding
   bug by searching (possibly nonlinear) history for commit which
   introduced bug, ForestExtension is rough equivalent of git
   submodules (or third party git-externals), there is Transplain
   extension for git-rebase, etc.

   Mercurial has hgserve which can function as both web repository
   browser and as anonymous server; in Git they are split between
   git-daemon for anonymous repository access, and gitweb (or other
   web interfaces: cgit, git-php, ViewGit, Gitorious,..) for web
   interface.

   NOTE: In Git repacking and garbage collecting is explicit
   (although can be automated with "git gc --auto", and some of it
   happens automatically); Git use _rename detection_ rather than
   _rename tracking_, which has its advantages and disadvantages.


They are many articles comparing Mercurial and Git; if they are blog
posts please read the comments too.  Among them are:
* "Git vs. Mercurial: Please Relax" (Git is MacGyver, Mercurial
   is James Bond)
  http://importantshock.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/git-vs-mercurial/
* "The Differences Between Mercurial and Git"
  http://www.rockstarprogrammer.org/post/2008/apr/06/differences-between-mercurial-and-git/
* "Git vs. Mercurial"
  http://blog.experimentalworks.net/archives/38-Git-vs.-Mercurial.html
* "Git versus Mercurial..."
  http://codeheadsystems.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/git-versus-mercurial/
* "Git vs Mercurial"
  http://www.simplicidade.org/notes/archives/2007/12/git_vs_mercuria_1.html

Note however that the comparison at "Better SCM Initiative" has some
wrong information about Git: see
* "Git at Better SCM Initiative comparison of VCS (long)"
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/95809/focus=97253
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Maxim Vuets]

On 26 Oct 2008 15:15:57 +0100, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Documentation and ease of use.
>
>    Mercurial is supposedly better documented and easier to use; I
>    think this descends from the early days of Git, where it was not
>    very user friendly. IMHO Git has much improved since.  Mercurial
>    had 'hgbook' from the beginning; Git User's Manual is more recent.

Also, there is http://book.git-scm.com/ that is similar to hgbook, I think.

Thanks for the comprarision!

-- 
 .  Hoc est simplicissimum!
..: maxim.vuets.name

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Leo Razoumov]

On 10/26/08, Maxim Vuets <maxim.vuets@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26 Oct 2008 15:15:57 +0100, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>  > 1. Documentation and ease of use.
>  >
>  >    Mercurial is supposedly better documented and easier to use; I
>  >    think this descends from the early days of Git, where it was not
>  >    very user friendly. IMHO Git has much improved since.  Mercurial
>  >    had 'hgbook' from the beginning; Git User's Manual is more recent.
>
>
> Also, there is http://book.git-scm.com/ that is similar to hgbook, I think.
>
>  Thanks for the comprarision!

I have been using Mercurial for about two years and am very
comfortable with it.  Here are some cons and pros

Mercurial PROS:
* Easier and more consistent UI. Newbie friendly.
* Better documentation. IMHO, hgbook is by far better than
http://book.git-scm.com/
* Windows support (personally, I do not care)

Mercurial CONS:
* Less potential than git. Once Ted Tso even said that "git has more
legs than mercurial", see
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2007/03/24/git-and-hg/
* Hg is strictly an SCM system while GIT is a content addressable file
system that can be used in other ways, hence the name Global
Information Tracker (GIT)
* Recently, Hg development seems to have somewhat slowed down. To
simply put it, there is not enough room in the world for several
similar SCM systems. With git's pace and momentum the other SCMs
including Hg are fighting an uphill battle.

Just my two cents.
--Leo--

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Felipe Contreras]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> [Cc: gmane.comp.version-control.git,
>     gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general]
>
> walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here
>> will know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd
>> project (www.dragonflybsd.org).
>>
>> Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote
>> for your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group,
>> accessible via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org.
>>
>> I've already cast my vote for git, which I confess is not very
>> honest because I've never even tried mercurial.  I would truly
>> be grateful to anyone here who knows both git and mercurial who
>> could contribute verifiable facts to that debate.

<snip/>

> 3. Repository design and performance.
>
>   Git is designed around idea of content adressed object database;
>   objects are adressed by their content (by SHA-1 of their type and
>   content).  Commits for example have information about author and
>   comitter, pointer to zero or more parent commits, and pointer to
>   tree object (representing top directory in project).  Branches
>   and tags are just pointers to DAG (Direct Acyclic Graph) of
>   commits; current branch is denoted by HEAD pointer to branch.
>   There is explicit staging area called 'index', used for conflict
>   resolution dureing merges, and which can be used to make commit in
>   stages, allow uncomitted changes in tree (in working directory).
>   Git design supports very well multiple branches in single
>   repository, and tracking changes in multiple remote repositories
>   each with multiple branches.
>
>   Mercurial, from what I have read of its documentation, and from the
>   few discussion on #revctrl IRC channel, and from what I understand
>   is based on changes stored per file, with information about files
>   and their versions stored in manifest (flat) file, and with changes
>   described in changelog-like file (changerev).  One of limitations
>   of "record" database (as opposed to Git's object database) is that
>   commits can have zero (root commit), one or two (merge commits)
>   parents only.  There is apparent in design that Mercurial was
>   developed with single branch per repository paradigm in mind.
>   Local branches from what I understand are marked in CVS-like
>   fashion using tags.  Tags are implemented as either local to
>   repository and untransferable, or as .hgtags versioned file with
>   special case treatment.  (But I'm obviously biased here).
>
>   Git and Mercurial have similar performance, although it is thought
>   that due to design Mercurla has faster patch applying and is
>   optimized for cold cache case, while Git has faster merging and is
>   optimized for warm cache case.
>
>   Mercurial may have (or had) problems with larger binary files, from
>   what I have heard.

The fact that hg is changeset based means that certain operations are
slower, like checkout a specific commit. In hg my bet is you would
need to gather a bunch of changesets while in git the operation is
done in a single step.

It also means that bare clones are not possible in hg, or at least
very complicated.

Note: I'm not sure if what I'm claiming is correct.

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

I'm not sure if Mercurial mailing list is not subscribe only. Git isn't.

On Sun, 26 Oct 2008, Leo Razoumov wrote:
> On 10/26/08, Maxim Vuets <maxim.vuets@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 26 Oct 2008 15:15:57 +0100, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 1. Documentation and ease of use.
>>>
>>>    Mercurial is supposedly better documented and easier to use; I
>>>    think this descends from the early days of Git, where it was not
>>>    very user friendly. IMHO Git has much improved since.  Mercurial
>>>    had 'hgbook' from the beginning; Git User's Manual is more recent.
>>
>> Also, there is http://book.git-scm.com/ that is similar to hgbook, I think.
>>
>>  Thanks for the comprarision!
> 
> I have been using Mercurial for about two years and am very
> comfortable with it.  Here are some cons and pros
> 
> Mercurial PROS:
> * Easier and more consistent UI. Newbie friendly.

I think that _might_ be example of "Worse is better" scenario, with Git
having UI which evolved rather than was designed, and therefore less
consistent.

Also if you are limiting to what is described in main chapters of
'hgbook', namely one branch (one "fork") per repository paradigm
everything is simpler.

> * Better documentation. IMHO, hgbook is by far better than
>   http://book.git-scm.com/

And probably better than "Git User's Manual". There are lot of various
git-related documentation: "Git Magic", "Git for Computer Scientists",
"Git from bottoms up"...

> * Windows support (personally, I do not care)

And I think it is not important for DragonflyBSD.

Besides git _has_ MS Windows support, in the form of Cygwin and in the
form of msysGit project. It is still not as full as Linux support (for
example git-svn comes to mind), but it is not bad.  Well, Mercurial
has TortiouseHg, while Git-Cheetah is in very early stages...

> 
> Mercurial CONS:
> * Less potential than git. Once Ted Tso even said that "git has more
>   legs than mercurial", see
>   http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2007/03/24/git-and-hg/

I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.

> * Hg is strictly an SCM system while GIT is a content addressable file
>   system that can be used in other ways, hence the name Global
>   Information Tracker (GIT)

Errr... I think you are mislead by tongue-in-cheek backronym, which was
created in the beginning, when git had very weak porcelain (i.e. SCM UI).

> * Recently, Hg development seems to have somewhat slowed down. To
>   simply put it, there is not enough room in the world for several
>   similar SCM systems. With git's pace and momentum the other SCMs
>   including Hg are fighting an uphill battle.

The competing _distributed_ version control systems left seems to be
Bazaar-NG (Ubuntu), Mercurial (OpenSolaris, Mozilla), Git (Linux kernel,
Freedesktop.org, Ruby on Rails people).  There are many IDEs, many
editors, many web browsers; there is Linux and there are *BSD; I hope
that Mercurial would continue to be developed, and not vanish in
obscurity like Arch and clones...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

I'm not sure if Mercurial mailing list is not subscribe only. Git isn't.

On Sun, 26 Sep 2008, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [Cc: gmane.comp.version-control.git,
> >     gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general]

> > 3. Repository design and performance.

> >   Git and Mercurial have similar performance, although it is thought
> >   that due to design Mercurial has faster patch applying and is
> >   optimized for cold cache case, while Git has faster merging and is
> >   optimized for warm cache case.
> >
> >   Mercurial may have (or had) problems with larger binary files, from
> >   what I have heard.
> 
> The fact that hg is changeset based means that certain operations are
> slower, like checkout a specific commit. In hg my bet is you would
> need to gather a bunch of changesets while in git the operation is
> done in a single step.

Actually from what I have read Mercurial stores current version
(snapshot) from time to time, so time to resolve specific commit is
limited.  Also if you have packed your Git repository (good idea not
only to limit size, but also for performance (I/O performance)), then
resolving specific commit also might require some delta resolution
(by default delta chain length is limited to 50, see pack.depth).
 
> It also means that bare clones are not possible in hg, or at least
> very complicated.

I think it is things like .hgtags which make bare clones (without
working directory) to be hard or even impossible in Mercurial.

> Note: I'm not sure if what I'm claiming is correct.

Hmmm...
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Felipe Contreras]

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 9:07 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure if Mercurial mailing list is not subscribe only. Git isn't.
>
> On Sun, 26 Sep 2008, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > [Cc: gmane.comp.version-control.git,
>> >     gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general]
>
>> > 3. Repository design and performance.
>
>> >   Git and Mercurial have similar performance, although it is thought
>> >   that due to design Mercurial has faster patch applying and is
>> >   optimized for cold cache case, while Git has faster merging and is
>> >   optimized for warm cache case.
>> >
>> >   Mercurial may have (or had) problems with larger binary files, from
>> >   what I have heard.
>>
>> The fact that hg is changeset based means that certain operations are
>> slower, like checkout a specific commit. In hg my bet is you would
>> need to gather a bunch of changesets while in git the operation is
>> done in a single step.
>
> Actually from what I have read Mercurial stores current version
> (snapshot) from time to time, so time to resolve specific commit is
> limited.  Also if you have packed your Git repository (good idea not
> only to limit size, but also for performance (I/O performance)), then
> resolving specific commit also might require some delta resolution
> (by default delta chain length is limited to 50, see pack.depth).

Ah, ok, good to know.

>> It also means that bare clones are not possible in hg, or at least
>> very complicated.
>
> I think it is things like .hgtags which make bare clones (without
> working directory) to be hard or even impossible in Mercurial.

Oops, I meant shallow clones (git clone --depth=1).

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> > * Recently, Hg development seems to have somewhat slowed down. To
> >   simply put it, there is not enough room in the world for several
> >   similar SCM systems. With git's pace and momentum the other SCMs
> >   including Hg are fighting an uphill battle.
>
> The competing _distributed_ version control systems left seems to be
> Bazaar-NG (Ubuntu), Mercurial (OpenSolaris, Mozilla), Git (Linux kernel,
> Freedesktop.org, Ruby on Rails people).  There are many IDEs, many
> editors, many web browsers; there is Linux and there are *BSD; I hope
> that Mercurial would continue to be developed, and not vanish in
> obscurity like Arch and clones...

Before we get tangled in this train of thought: 

I created a head-to-head code_swarm of Mercurial and Git and it clearly shows 
that Mercurial development didn't slow down. 

The code_swarm isn't a fancy one with music and annotations, but I think 
you'll directly see for yourself what I mean: 

- http://www.rakjar.de/shared_codeswarm/hg-vs-git-short.avi

red is git, 
blue is Mercurial. 

It is a result of my shared_codeswarm project with which you can create 
code_swarms from more than one repository automatically - and update them 
incrementally, creating new code_swarms of only the new commits in the 
repositories: 

- http://www.rakjar.de/shared_codeswarm/project_activity_battle_swarm.html

Best wishes, 
Arne

-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1820 bytes --]

Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
> cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.

What do you mean by "cleaner design"? 

From what I see (and in my definition of "design"), Mercurial is designed as 
VCS with very clear and clean design, which even keeps things like streaming 
disk access in mind. 

Also, looking at git, git users still have to garbage collect regularly, which 
shows to me that the design wasn't really cleaner. 

As an example: If I want some revision in hg, my repository just reads the 
files in the store, jumps to the latest snapshots, adds the changes after 
these and has the data. 

In git is has to check all changesets which affect the file. 

If you read the hgbook, you'll find one especially nice comment: 

"Unlike many revision control systems, the concepts upon which Mercurial is 
built are simple enough that it’s easy to understand how the software really 
works. Knowing this certainly isn’t necessary, but I find it useful to have a 
“mental model” of what’s going on."
- http://hgbook.red-bean.com/hgbookch4.html

I really like that, and in my opinion it is a great compliment to hg, for two 
reasons: 

1) Hg is easy to understand
2) You don't have to understand it to use it

And both are indications of a good design, the first of the core, the second 
of the UI. 

Best wishes, 
Arne

-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> >
> > I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
> > cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.
> 
> What do you mean by "cleaner design"? 

Clean _underlying_ design. Git has very nice underlying model of graph
(DAG) of commits (revisions), and branches and tags as pointers to this
graph.

> From what I see (and in my definition of "design"), Mercurial is designed as 
> VCS with very clear and clean design, which even keeps things like streaming 
> disk access in mind. 

I have read description of Mercurial's repository format, and it is not
very clear in my opinion. File changesets, bound using manifest, bound
using changerev / changelog.

Mercurial relies on transactions and O_TRUNC support, while Git relies
on atomic write and on updating data then updating reference to data.

I don't quite understand comment about streaming disk access...

> Also, looking at git, git users still have to garbage collect regularly, which 
> shows to me that the design wasn't really cleaner. 

Well, they have to a lot less than they used to, and there is 
"git gc --auto" that can be put in crontab safely.

Explicit garbage collection was a design _decision_, not a sign of not
clear design. We can argue if it was good or bad decision, but one
should consider the following issues:

 * Rolling back last commit to correct it, or equivalently amending
   last commit (for example because we forgot some last minute change,
   or forgot to signoff a commit), or backing out of changes to the
   last commit in Mercurial relies on transactions (and locking) and
   correct O_TRUNC, while in Git it leaves dangling objects to be
   garbage collected later.

 * Mercurial relies on transaction support. Git relies on atomic write
   support and on the fact that objects are immutable; those that are
   not needed are garbage collected later. Beside IIRC some of ways of
   implementing transaction in databases leads to garbage collecting.

 * Explicit packing and having two repository "formats": loose and
   packed is a bit of historical reason: at the beginning there was
   only loose format. Pack format was IIRC invented for network
   transport, and was used for on disk storage (the same format!) for
   better I/O patterns[1]. Having packs as 'rewrite to pack' instead
   of 'append to pack' allows to prefer recency order, which result in
   faster access as objects from newer commits are earlier in delta
   chain and reduction in size in usual case of size growing with time
   as recency order allows to use delete deltas. Also _choosing_ base
   object allows further reduce size, especially in presence of
   nonlinear history.

 * From what I understand Mercurial by default uses packed format for
   branches and tags; Git uses "loose" format for recent branches
   (meaning one file per branch), while packing older references.
   Using loose affects performance (and size) only for insane number of
   references, and only for some operations like listing all references,
   while using packed format is IMHO a bit error prone when updating.

 * Git has reflogs which are pruned (expired) during garbage collecting
   to not grow them without bounds; AFAIK Mercurial doesn't have
   equivalent of this feature.

   (Reflogs store _local_ history of branch tip, noting commits, 
   fetches, merges, rewinding branch, switching branches, etc._

[1] You wrote about "streaming disk access". Git relies (for reading)
on good mmap implementation.

> As an example: If I want some revision in hg, my repository just reads the 
> files in the store, jumps to the latest snapshots, adds the changes after 
> these and has the data. 

If you want to show some revision in Git, meaning commit message and
diff in patch format (result of "git show"), Git just reads the commit,
outputs commit message, reads parent, reads trees and performs diff.

If you want to checkout to specific revision, Git just reads commit,
reads tree, and writes this tree (via index) to working area.
 
> In git is has to check all changesets which affect the file. 

I don't understand you here... if I understand correctly above,
then you are wrong about Git.

> If you read the hgbook, you'll find one especially nice comment: 
> 
> "Unlike many revision control systems, the concepts upon which Mercurial is 
> built are simple enough that it’s easy to understand how the software really 
> works. Knowing this certainly isn’t necessary, but I find it useful to have a 
> “mental model” of what’s going on."
> - http://hgbook.red-bean.com/hgbookch4.html
> 
> I really like that, and in my opinion it is a great compliment to hg, for two 
> reasons: 
> 
> 1) Hg is easy to understand

Because it is simple... and less feature rich, c.f. multiple local
branches in single repository.

> 2) You don't have to understand it to use it

You don't have to understand details of Git design (pack format, index,
stages, refs,...) to use it either.

> 
> And both are indications of a good design, the first of the core, the second 
> of the UI. 

Well, Git is built around concept of DAG of commits and branches as
references to it. Without it you can use Git, but it is hard. But
if you understand it, you can understand easily most advanced Git
features.

I agree that Mercurial UI is better; as usually in "Worse is Better"
case... :-)
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Leo Razoumov]

On 10/26/08, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> wrote:
> Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
>
> > > * Recently, Hg development seems to have somewhat slowed down. To
>  > >   simply put it, there is not enough room in the world for several
>  > >   similar SCM systems. With git's pace and momentum the other SCMs
>  > >   including Hg are fighting an uphill battle.
>  >
>  > The competing _distributed_ version control systems left seems to be
>  > Bazaar-NG (Ubuntu), Mercurial (OpenSolaris, Mozilla), Git (Linux kernel,
>  > Freedesktop.org, Ruby on Rails people).  There are many IDEs, many
>  > editors, many web browsers; there is Linux and there are *BSD; I hope
>  > that Mercurial would continue to be developed, and not vanish in
>  > obscurity like Arch and clones...
>
>
> Before we get tangled in this train of thought:
>
>  I created a head-to-head code_swarm of Mercurial and Git and it clearly shows
>  that Mercurial development didn't slow down.
>

I am not familiar with code swarms, sorry. My impressions are
subjective are thoroughly un-scientific:-)
(1) Judging by the activity of mailing lists git community is several
times larger and more active in terms of actual submitted patches.
(2) Hg forest extension is still not in the tree with outdated and
incorrect documentation in the wiki. For me it was biggest reason to
migrate from Hg to git.

--Leo--

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 05:15:11 schrieb Leo Razoumov:
> >  I created a head-to-head code_swarm of Mercurial and Git and it clearly
> > shows that Mercurial development didn't slow down.
>
> I am not familiar with code swarms, sorry. My impressions are
> subjective are thoroughly un-scientific:-)

That's always the case with code_swarms. 

They only show the commit activity: How often how many files where changed. 

They aren't a fair comparision but a damn unfair battle relying strongly on 
development style, programming language (influences the style) and such. 

What you can see very clearly in them is how activity patterns _change_. 

And the Mercurial activity doesn't slow down. 

Instead in the beginning you can see them pacing each other, git always the 
bigger activity. 
There was a moment in may this year when git activity had receded to the point 
where it was equal to Mercurials activity, but it recovered from that. 

An artifact in Mercurial is that it took an almost two week break in July this 
year, but apart from that development always rolled on, and in august the 
commits where coming fast again. 

The smaller activity can for example be a result of a development style where 
changes are thouroughly discussed before they get implemented. 

> (1) Judging by the activity of mailing lists git community is several
> times larger and more active in terms of actual submitted patches.

This is something which didn't change. Git had higher activity from the start, 
yet Mercurials actual code paced it well and was faster at some things. 

Git still has higher activity, but that can simply stem from Mercurial being 
almost completely done in Python which need less code to do the same work. 

> (2) Hg forest extension is still not in the tree with outdated and
> incorrect documentation in the wiki. For me it was biggest reason to
> migrate from Hg to git.

Why didn't you instead update the documentation in the wiki? 

I don't use the forest extension, so I can't judge whether it is fit for 
inclusion in the tree. 

But I wrote the group extension and learned that way that writing Mercurial 
extensions is far easier than I thought. And different from the shell, Python 
code is platform independent. 

Best wishes, 
Arne

-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[dhruva]

Hello,

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 9:45 AM, Leo Razoumov <slonik.az@gmail.com> wrote:
> (2) Hg forest extension is still not in the tree with outdated and
> incorrect documentation in the wiki. For me it was biggest reason to
> migrate from Hg to git.

There are a few extensions that ought to be part of main hg, I have
proposed rdiff and am still waiting to hear. Since hg depends a lot on
extensions to extend it (good design), commnly used or useful
extensions must be made part of mainstream at a steady pace.
Otherwise, new users who are not aware of existence of various
extensions will start comparing main hg with git. Since git has most
of the features in the core part, hence the comparisons will be not
apple to apple.

-dhruva

-- 
Contents reflect my personal views only!

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 02:52:22 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> > > I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
> > > cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.
> >
> > What do you mean by "cleaner design"?
>
> Clean _underlying_ design. Git has very nice underlying model of graph
> (DAG) of commits (revisions), and branches and tags as pointers to this
> graph.
>
> > From what I see (and in my definition of "design"), Mercurial is designed
> > as VCS with very clear and clean design, which even keeps things like
> > streaming disk access in mind.
>
> I have read description of Mercurial's repository format, and it is not
> very clear in my opinion. File changesets, bound using manifest, bound
> using changerev / changelog.

This grows very simple if you keep common filesystem layout in mind. 

inodes and datanodes (the files in the store), organized in directories which 
keep many files (manifests) bound in changesets which keep additional data. 

> Mercurial relies on transactions and O_TRUNC support, while Git relies
> on atomic write and on updating data then updating reference to data.

For most operations Mercurial just relies on appending support. 

> I don't quite understand comment about streaming disk access...

If you tell a disk "give me files a, b, c, d, e, f (of the whole abc)", it is 
faster then if you tell it "give me files a k p q s t", because the filesystem 
can easier optimize that call. 

That's why for example Mercurial avoids hashing filenames. 

> Well, they have to a lot less than they used to, and there is
> "git gc --auto" that can be put in crontab safely.

relying on crontab which might not be available in all systems (I only use 
GNU/Linux, but what about friends of mine who have to use Windows?)

> Explicit garbage collection was a design _decision_, not a sign of not
> clear design. We can argue if it was good or bad decision, but one
> should consider the following issues:
>
>  * Rolling back last commit to correct it, or equivalently amending
>    last commit (for example because we forgot some last minute change,
>    or forgot to signoff a commit), or backing out of changes to the
>    last commit in Mercurial relies on transactions (and locking) and
>    correct O_TRUNC, while in Git it leaves dangling objects to be
>    garbage collected later.

As far as I know the only problem woth O_TRUNC was that it sadly had bugs in 
Linux.

>  * Mercurial relies on transaction support. Git relies on atomic write
>    support and on the fact that objects are immutable; those that are
>    not needed are garbage collected later. Beside IIRC some of ways of
>    implementing transaction in databases leads to garbage collecting.

But Mercurial normally works on standard filesystems, so this isn't the case 
for normal operations. 

You culd say, though, that git implements a very simple transaction model: 
Keep all old data until it gets purged explicitely. 

>  * Explicit packing and having two repository "formats": loose and
>    packed is a bit of historical reason: at the beginning there was
>    only loose format. Pack format was IIRC invented for network
>    transport, and was used for on disk storage (the same format!) for
>    better I/O patterns[1]. Having packs as 'rewrite to pack' instead
>    of 'append to pack' allows to prefer recency order, which result in
>    faster access as objects from newer commits are earlier in delta
>    chain and reduction in size in usual case of size growing with time
>    as recency order allows to use delete deltas. Also _choosing_ base
>    object allows further reduce size, especially in presence of
>    nonlinear history.

So having multiple packs is equivalent to the automatic snapshot system in 
Mercurial which doesn't need user interaction. 

>  * From what I understand Mercurial by default uses packed format for
>    branches and tags; Git uses "loose" format for recent branches
>    (meaning one file per branch), while packing older references.
>    Using loose affects performance (and size) only for insane number of
>    references, and only for some operations like listing all references,
>    while using packed format is IMHO a bit error prone when updating.

As far as I know, Mercurial got that "using packed format" right from the 
beginning. 

>  * Git has reflogs which are pruned (expired) during garbage collecting
>    to not grow them without bounds; AFAIK Mercurial doesn't have
>    equivalent of this feature.
>
>    (Reflogs store _local_ history of branch tip, noting commits,
>    fetches, merges, rewinding branch, switching branches, etc._

As far as I know Mercurial only tracks the state of the working directory, so 
it doesn't track your whole local history. 

But others can better tell you more about that in greater detail. 

> [1] You wrote about "streaming disk access". Git relies (for reading)
> on good mmap implementation.
>
> > In git is has to check all changesets which affect the file.
>
> I don't understand you here... if I understand correctly above,
> then you are wrong about Git.

Might be that I remember incorrectly about what git does. 

Are its commits "the whole changed file" or "the diff of the changes"? 

If the latter, it needs to walk back all commits to the snapshot revision to 
get the file data. 

One story I experienced with that: 

My amd64 GNU/Linux box suffers from performance problems when it gets high 
levels of disk activity (something about the filesystem layer doesn't play 
well with amd64 - reported by others, too). 

When I pulled a the Linux kernel repository with git half a year ago, my disk 
started klicking and the whole computer slowed down to a crawl. 

When I pulled the same repository data from a Mercurial repository, the 
computer kept running smooth, the disk stayed silent and happily wrote the 
data. 

Mercurial felt smooth, while git felt damn clumsy (though not slow). 

> > 1) Hg is easy to understand
>
> Because it is simple... and less feature rich, c.f. multiple local
> branches in single repository.

That works quite well. People just don't use it very often, because the 
workflow of having multiple repositories is easier with hg. 

> > 2) You don't have to understand it to use it
>
> You don't have to understand details of Git design (pack format, index,
> stages, refs,...) to use it either.

I remember that to have been incorrect about half a year ago, when I stumbled 
over many problems in git whenever I tried to do something a bit nonstandard. 

It took me hours (and in the end asking a friend) to find out about 

"git checkout ."

just to get back my deleted files. 

The answer I got when I asked why it's done that way was "this is because of 
the inner workings of git. You should know them if you use it". 

> > And both are indications of a good design, the first of the core, the
> > second of the UI.
>
> Well, Git is built around concept of DAG of commits and branches as
> references to it. Without it you can use Git, but it is hard. But
> if you understand it, you can understand easily most advanced Git
> features.
>
> I agree that Mercurial UI is better; as usually in "Worse is Better"
> case... :-)

What do you mean with that? 

Best wishes, 
Arne

-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Benoit Boissinot]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:52 AM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
>> Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
>> >
>> > I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
>> > cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.
>>
>> What do you mean by "cleaner design"?
>
> Clean _underlying_ design. Git has very nice underlying model of graph
> (DAG) of commits (revisions), and branches and tags as pointers to this
> graph.

Git and Mercurial are very close from that point of view.
Mercurial explicitely disallow octopus merges (and we don't think there's
a good reason to allow them, although I agree with Linus, they look very nice
in gitk ;) ).
And we don't have "branches as pointer" in core, but the bookmark extension does
that.
Appart from that I think the underlying format are interchangeable, someone
could use the git format with the hg ui, or use revlogs (the basic
format of mercurial)
like packs.

The only special thing about revlogs is the linkrev stuff, it's a
pointer to the first revision
that introduced an object, so we can easily find what to send in our
network protocol
(we don't have to read the manifest, ie the "tree" of objects").
linkrev can be useful
to speedup "hg log" too.

> I have read description of Mercurial's repository format, and it is not
> very clear in my opinion. File changesets, bound using manifest, bound
> using changerev / changelog.
>

just do a s/// with the git terminology:
filelog -> blob
manifest -> tree
changelog -> commit object

regards,

Benoit

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 02:52:22 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
>> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
>>> Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
>>>>
>>>> I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
>>>> cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.
>>>
>>> What do you mean by "cleaner design"?

>>> From what I see (and in my definition of "design"), Mercurial is designed
>>> as VCS with very clear and clean design, which even keeps things like
>>> streaming disk access in mind.
>>
>> I have read description of Mercurial's repository format, and it is not
>> very clear in my opinion. File changesets, bound using manifest, bound
>> using changerev / changelog.
> 
> This grows very simple if you keep common filesystem layout in mind. 
> 
> inodes and datanodes (the files in the store), organized in directories which 
> keep many files (manifests) bound in changesets which keep additional data. 

Well, for you it might be simple, for others it is binding things
together with duct tape and spit. (I am exaggerating here).

What Mercurial repository design did not get correctly, in my opinion
is its handling of tags and [named] branches.
 
>> I don't quite understand comment about streaming disk access...
> 
> If you tell a disk "give me files a, b, c, d, e, f (of the whole abc)", it is 
> faster then if you tell it "give me files a k p q s t", because the filesystem 
> can easier optimize that call. 

I would expect _good_ filesystem to be able to optimize this call as
well. As I said it looks like Mercurial and Git are optimized for
different cases: Git relies on filesystem for caching, and optimizes
for warm cache performance.

> 
> That's why for example Mercurial avoids hashing filenames. 

First, git does not hash filenames. The hash is contents, not of name.
You can say it stores objects (in loose format) in hash-based filenames.
 
Second, in packed repository you don't have to ask filesystem to "give
me files a, k, p, q, s, t (of the whole abc)"; you ask filesystem to
mmap a _single_ pack file (well, almost, there is also pack index to
mmap).

Yes, that means that you should periodically repack for better
performance... but currently git tries to use packed format as much
as possible, keeping packs from network if they are not too small,
repacking if creating large number of objects, etc.

>> Well, they have to a lot less than they used to, and there is
>> "git gc --auto" that can be put in crontab safely.
> 
> relying on crontab which might not be available in all systems (I only use 
> GNU/Linux, but what about friends of mine who have to use Windows?)

So they would have to either periodically repack by hand, or use some
crontab equivalent on MS Windows.

But that doesn't matter in the context of this discussion, which is
DragonflyBSD; worse or better support for MS Windows doesn't matter
here, does it?

> 
>> Explicit garbage collection was a design _decision_, not a sign of not
>> clear design. We can argue if it was good or bad decision, but one
>> should consider the following issues:
>>
>>  * Rolling back last commit to correct it, or equivalently amending
>>    last commit (for example because we forgot some last minute change,
>>    or forgot to signoff a commit), or backing out of changes to the
>>    last commit in Mercurial relies on transactions (and locking) and
>>    correct O_TRUNC, while in Git it leaves dangling objects to be
>>    garbage collected later.
> 
> As far as I know the only problem with O_TRUNC was that it sadly had bugs in 
> Linux.
> 
>>  * Mercurial relies on transaction support. Git relies on atomic write
>>    support and on the fact that objects are immutable; those that are
>>    not needed are garbage collected later. Beside IIRC some of ways of
>>    implementing transaction in databases leads to garbage collecting.
> 
> But Mercurial normally works on standard filesystems, so this isn't the case 
> for normal operations.

Mercurial implements transactions as a way to keeping operations atomic.
So I don't know what you mean by "normally works on standard filesystem"
here.

> 
> You could say, though, that git implements a very simple transaction model: 
> Keep all old data until it gets purged explicitely.

Git just uses different way to keep operations atomic, different way
of implementing transactions.

I'm not sure if I should have mentioned transactions in databases here.
Oh, well... Note however that there are advanced way of doing
transactions in relational databases which lead to dangling things
to be purged when transaction is interrupted. But this is not to the
point...

> 
>>  * Explicit packing and having two repository "formats": loose and
>>    packed is a bit of historical reason: at the beginning there was
>>    only loose format. Pack format was IIRC invented for network
>>    transport, and was used for on disk storage (the same format!) for
>>    better I/O patterns[1]. Having packs as 'rewrite to pack' instead
>>    of 'append to pack' allows to prefer recency order, which result in
>>    faster access as objects from newer commits are earlier in delta
>>    chain and reduction in size in usual case of size growing with time
>>    as recency order allows to use delete deltas. Also _choosing_ base
>>    object allows further reduce size, especially in presence of
>>    nonlinear history.
> 
> So having multiple packs is equivalent to the automatic snapshot system in 
> Mercurial which doesn't need user interaction. 

Snapshot system doesn't change the fact that Mercurial (from what I
understand) implements forward deltas, from older version to never
version, and not from newer version to older.

Also from what I remember Mercurial didn't implement deltification
right from the start; it had problems with nonlinear history (it used
delta from last version appended, not from the parent version).

>>  * From what I understand Mercurial by default uses packed format for
>>    branches and tags; Git uses "loose" format for recent branches
>>    (meaning one file per branch), while packing older references.
>>    Using loose affects performance (and size) only for insane number of
>>    references, and only for some operations like listing all references,
>>    while using packed format is IMHO a bit error prone when updating.
> 
> As far as I know, Mercurial got that "using packed format" right from the 
> beginning. 

And probably requires transactions and locks for that. Git simply uses
atomic write solution for atomic update of references.

> 
>>  * Git has reflogs which are pruned (expired) during garbage collecting
>>    to not grow them without bounds; AFAIK Mercurial doesn't have
>>    equivalent of this feature.
>>
>>    (Reflogs store _local_ history of branch tip, noting commits,
>>    fetches, merges, rewinding branch, switching branches, etc._
> 
> As far as I know Mercurial only tracks the state of the working directory, so 
> it doesn't track your whole local history. 
> 
> But others can better tell you more about that in greater detail. 

Reflogs are very useful, and are natural extension of simple rollback
last transaction Mercurial has (which Git had equivalent from the very
beginning in the form of ORIG_HEAD). They allow for example for you
go back to the state before incorrect rewinding a branch, or before
applying series of patches from email, etc.

>> [1] You wrote about "streaming disk access". Git relies (for reading)
>> on good mmap implementation.
>>
>>> In git is has to check all changesets which affect the file.
>>
>> I don't understand you here... if I understand correctly above,
>> then you are wrong about Git.
> 
> Might be that I remember incorrectly about what git does. 
> 
> Are its commits "the whole changed file" or "the diff of the changes"? 
> 
> If the latter, it needs to walk back all commits to the snapshot revision to 
> get the file data. 

Git is snapshot based SCM, although 'behind the scenes' it uses deltas
in the pack format. So to get file data at given revision (i.e. to do
something like "git show <revision>:<filename>") it needs to access
<revision>, access its tree, and access contents of a file (blob).

Behind the scenes, at a lower level, Git does necessary delta resolving.
Delta chains in packs have limited length (as they have in Mercurial).

> One story I experienced with that: 
> 
> My amd64 GNU/Linux box suffers from performance problems when it gets high 
> levels of disk activity (something about the filesystem layer doesn't play 
> well with amd64 - reported by others, too). 
> 
> When I pulled a the Linux kernel repository with git half a year ago, my disk 
> started klicking and the whole computer slowed down to a crawl. 
> 
> When I pulled the same repository data from a Mercurial repository, the 
> computer kept running smooth, the disk stayed silent and happily wrote the 
> data. 
> 
> Mercurial felt smooth, while git felt damn clumsy (though not slow). 

The answer usually is: did you have this repository packed? I admit
that it might be considered one of disadvantages of git, this having
to do garbage collection from time to time... just like in C ;-)

>>> 1) Hg is easy to understand
>>
>> Because it is simple... and less feature rich, c.f. multiple local
>> branches in single repository.
> 
> That works quite well. People just don't use it very often, because the 
> workflow of having multiple repositories is easier with hg. 

Workflow of having multiple repositories, or one branch per repository,
is IMHO as simple in Git as in Mercurial, and as in Bazaar-NG.

>>> 2) You don't have to understand it to use it
>>
>> You don't have to understand details of Git design (pack format, index,
>> stages, refs,...) to use it either.
> 
> I remember that to have been incorrect about half a year ago, when I stumbled 
> over many problems in git whenever I tried to do something a bit nonstandard. 
> 
> It took me hours (and in the end asking a friend) to find out about 
> 
> "git checkout ."
> 
> just to get back my deleted files. 
> 
> The answer I got when I asked why it's done that way was "this is because of 
> the inner workings of git. You should know them if you use it". 

Well, understanding "git checkout ." doesn't require understanding
inner workings of git. Your friend was incorrect here. I'll agree
though that it is a bit of quirk in UI[1] (but I use usually 
"git reset --hard" to reset to last committed state).

[1] Having git-checkout behave very differently with and without
pathname parameter, and overloading of git-checkout.

>>> And both are indications of a good design, the first of the core, the
>>> second of the UI.
>>
>> Well, Git is built around concept of DAG of commits and branches as
>> references to it. Without it you can use Git, but it is hard. But
>> if you understand it, you can understand easily most advanced Git
>> features.
>>
>> I agree that Mercurial UI is better; as usually in "Worse is Better"
>> case... :-)
> 
> What do you mean with that? 

Just Google for "Worse is Better". But what I actually mean that Git
feature set and UI has evolved from very bare-bones plumbing, adding
features and UI _as needed_, instead of being designed according to
what designer thought it was needed.

For example in http://gitster.livejournal.com/9970.html Junio C Hamano
(git maintainer) writes:

  By the time the basic structure as we currently know has stabilized,
  we had help from literally dozens of contributors to add many things
  on top of the very original version:
  [...]
  
  * We did not envision that multiple branches in a single repository
    would turn out to be such a useful way to work, and did not have
    support for switching branches.
  [...]
  
  It still is amazing that all of these were done without having to go
  back to the drawing board.  It shows how sound the initial conceptual
  design was.

P.S. See "Innovations in git", http://gitster.livejournal.com/16077.html
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Leslie P. Polzer]

> I'm not sure if I should have mentioned transactions in databases here.
> Oh, well... Note however that there are advanced way of doing
> transactions in relational databases which lead to dangling things
> to be purged when transaction is interrupted.

For the record: transactions are applicable to all kinds of databases,
not only relational ones.

  Leslie

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 10:41:53 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> > If you tell a disk "give me files a, b, c, d, e, f (of the whole abc)",
> > it is faster then if you tell it "give me files a k p q s t", because the
> > filesystem can easier optimize that call.
>
> I would expect _good_ filesystem to be able to optimize this call as
> well. As I said it looks like Mercurial and Git are optimized for
> different cases: Git relies on filesystem for caching, and optimizes
> for warm cache performance.

The problem is by which knowledge the filesystem should optimize this call 
when it is storing the files in the first place. 

> > relying on crontab which might not be available in all systems (I only
> > use GNU/Linux, but what about friends of mine who have to use Windows?)
>
> But that doesn't matter in the context of this discussion, which is
> DragonflyBSD; worse or better support for MS Windows doesn't matter
> here, does it?

It only matters, if some developers are forced to work on WIndows machines at 
times. 

> > But Mercurial normally works on standard filesystems, so this isn't the
> > case for normal operations.
>
> Mercurial implements transactions as a way to keeping operations atomic.
> So I don't know what you mean by "normally works on standard filesystem"
> here.

I just meant "databases are a bit off topic" :) 

> > You could say, though, that git implements a very simple transaction
> > model: Keep all old data until it gets purged explicitely.
>
> Git just uses different way to keep operations atomic, different way
> of implementing transactions.

That's what I wanted to express. 

> And probably requires transactions and locks for that. Git simply uses
> atomic write solution for atomic update of references.

Doesn't atomic write also need locks, though on a lower level (to ensure 
atomicity)? 

> Behind the scenes, at a lower level, Git does necessary delta resolving.
> Delta chains in packs have limited length (as they have in Mercurial).

So both do snapshots - they seem more and more similar to me :) 

> The answer usually is: did you have this repository packed? I admit
> that it might be considered one of disadvantages of git, this having
> to do garbage collection from time to time... just like in C ;-)

I cloned from the official repositories. 

I hope Linus had his repository packed :) 

> Well, understanding "git checkout ." doesn't require understanding
> inner workings of git. Your friend was incorrect here. I'll agree
> though that it is a bit of quirk in UI[1] (but I use usually
> "git reset --hard" to reset to last committed state).

Damn - one more way how I could have archieved what I wanted... one more way I 
didn't find. 

> Just Google for "Worse is Better". But what I actually mean that Git
> feature set and UI has evolved from very bare-bones plumbing, adding
> features and UI _as needed_, instead of being designed according to
> what designer thought it was needed.

And that's how it feels to me. 

A great testing ground, but it developed too many stumbling blocks which keep 
me from trying things. 

When I now use git, I only do the most basic operations: clone, pull, push, 
add, commit, checkout. When anything else arises, I check if it is worth the 
risk of having to read up for hours - and since that wasn't the case for the 
last few months, I then just ignore the problem or ask someone else if he can 
fix it. 

As a contrast, when I encounter a problem with Mercurial, I simply check the 
commands for a moment and then try to solve it, and normally I have what I 
wanted within seconds to minutes. 

Git instead bit me once too often. 

I know that this isn't something which hits everyone and that it is 
subjective, but since it hit me, I'm wary of git, because in my view it isn't 
something for the majority of people - and you almost always have someone from 
that "majority" in your project. 

I don't want people getting afraid of solving their own problems, so I avoid 
systems which bite so often, that they create fear (for example of losing much 
time on something which should be a side issue). 


All in all it's a UI issue - while the git UI bit me quite often, the 
Mercurial UI just works. 

Best wishes, 
Arne

-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

Dnia poniedziałek 27. października 2008 10:29, Benoit Boissinot napisał:
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:52 AM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
>>> Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
>>>>
>>>> I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
>>>> cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.
>>>
>>> What do you mean by "cleaner design"?
>>
>> Clean _underlying_ design. Git has very nice underlying model of graph
>> (DAG) of commits (revisions), and branches and tags as pointers to this
>> graph.
> 
> Git and Mercurial are very close from that point of view.
>
> Mercurial explicitely disallow octopus merges (and we don't think there's
> a good reason to allow them, although I agree with Linus, they look very nice
> in gitk ;) ).

From what I see Mercurial disallows octopus merges (merges with more
than two parents) because of its rigid-record database repository
design, while Git is more like object database.  Fixed width records
of VMS vs delimited records of Unix... There is simply place on
zero, one or two parents (two parent fields, which can be null) in
Mercurial changerev format.

By the way flexibility of Git design allowed to add 'encoding' header
to commit message (if commits message is encoded not in utf-8) after
the fact, without affecting older repository data, and playing well
with old git installations which do not understand this header.

> And we don't have "branches as pointer" in core, but the bookmark
> extension does that.

I disagree. Mercurial implementation of tags is strange, and from
what I remember and from discussion on #revctrl implementation
of local named branches is also strange (CVS-like). They are IMHO
not well designed.

Also the 'hidden' branches after fetching from remote repository
(hg pull) but before merging (hg update) are IMHO worse design
than explicit remote-tracking branches in Git, especially in presence
of multiple [named] branches in repositories.

> Apart from that I think the underlying format are interchangeable,
> someone could use the git format with the hg ui, or use revlogs
> (the basic format of mercurial) like packs.

I don't think so. The 'content addressed filesystem' idea of Git
is quite pervasive along Git implementation and Git thoughtflows.

> 
> The only special thing about revlogs is the linkrev stuff, it's a
> pointer to the first revision that introduced an object, so we can
> easily find what to send in our network protocol (we don't have to
> read the manifest, ie the "tree" of objects"). linkrev can be useful
> to speedup "hg log" too.

At first I thought: what a nice idea... but then I realized that in
distributed environment there is no way to define "first revision that
introduced an object". Take for example the following history 
(independent introduction):

  .---.---.---.---x---.---.---.
           \
            --x---.---.

where both 'x' have the same version of an object. The top branch
appeared first in current repository, but the bottom branch had 'x'
with earlier timestamp (earlier authordate).


Git just relies on the fact that traversing revision is a part of it
that is heavily optimized and really fast. Git very much by design
doesn't store any backlinks in repository object database.

>> I have read description of Mercurial's repository format, and it is not
>> very clear in my opinion. File changesets, bound using manifest, bound
>> using changerev / changelog.
>>
> 
> just do a s/// with the git terminology:
> filelog -> blob
> manifest -> tree
> changelog -> commit object

True. But as I see it they are bound in reverse order in Mercurial:
deltas are stored in filelog, filelogs are bound together in manifest,
manifest are bound using changelog, while in Git commit object
references tree (and parents), trees references blobs, and blob store
content of a file. But that might be just my impression.


.......................................................................

By the way, going back to the matter of choosing version control system
for DragonflyBSD; some time ago I have written post
 * "Mercurial's only true "plugin" extension: inotify... 
    and can it be done in Git?"
   http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/76661
   (current answer: it is possible using 'assume unchanged' bit)
about how nearly every Mercurial extension has equivalent functionality
in Git. 

But what about the reverse, about the following features and
issues in Mercurial:

 * Merging in presence of criss-cross merges[1], and in presence of
   file renames, i.e what merge-recursive does in Git.

 * git-rerere, reusing recorded resolution of conflicted merges.
   Resolving the same merge happens often if you use topic branches
   and trial merging.

 * git-grep that allows you to "and" the match criteria together,
   and also pick a file (not a line) that matches all the criteria;
   and of course allow searching given revision and not only working
   directory.

 * pickaxe search (git log -S) which contrary to blame/annotate
   allow to find commit which _deleted_ given fragment.

 * easy management of multiple repositories you fetch from with 
   remote-tracking branches and git-remote command.

 * blame that follows block-of-line movement (it was invented by Linus
   as a vision long time ago, but it took very long time to materialize).

 * a way to review merge resolution, something that is done in git
   by using combined diff format

 * git-stash, allowing to stash away changes to go back to them later;
   it allows to stash away even partially resolved merge conflict
   (merge resolution in progress).

 * git-filter-branch (based on cg-admin-rewrite-hist), which allow
   to rewrite history for example to remove file which should never
   be added to version control (for example because of copyright
   or license).

References:
===========
[1] http://revctrl.org/CrissCrossMerge
    BTW I wonder why reverting spam is made so hard on revctrl.org wiki
  
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[David Soria Parra]

Emanuele Aina schrieb:
> Jakub Narebski precisò:
> 
>>> What do you mean by "cleaner design"? 
>> Clean _underlying_ design. Git has very nice underlying model of graph
>> (DAG) of commits (revisions), and branches and tags as pointers to this
>> graph.
> 
> Just for reference, the abstract history model of Mercurial and GIT is
> the same, a DAG of changesets identified by their cryptographic hash as
> designed for Monotone, which can be considered the parent of both.
> 
> GIT and Mercurial then differs in how this abstract model is written to
> disk, with different tradeoffs in terms of performances and how easily a
> specific feature can be implemented, but there is no reason something
> can be done in GIT but not in Mercurial or viceversa.

Yes, it's the same: a DAG  with hashes. But there are limitations due to 
the implementation (and not the design). Just as a bad and completely 
useless example (don't start to argue, I know it's nothing someone would 
like to have): you cannot force mercurial to merge two revisions and 
create a merge commit if one is the others ancestor,which is possible in 
git with git --no-ff. In addition they differ in some other ways: 
Mercurial doesn't have an index to stage commits, which is something 
that git has and allows very powerful features (such as git add -i, etc).

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 10:41:53 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
>>>
>>> If you tell a disk "give me files a, b, c, d, e, f (of the whole abc)",
>>> it is faster then if you tell it "give me files a k p q s t", because the
>>> filesystem can easier optimize that call.
>>
>> I would expect _good_ filesystem to be able to optimize this call as
>> well. As I said it looks like Mercurial and Git are optimized for
>> different cases: Git relies on filesystem for caching, and optimizes
>> for warm cache performance.
> 
> The problem is by which knowledge the filesystem should optimize this call 
> when it is storing the files in the first place. 

Well, that is a question for filesystem designer, and VFS designer...

What I want to emphasize that perhaps Mercurial is optimized for 
"streaming access", but fully packed Git repository requires only
single (well, up to details) mmap, which I think is even better.

>>> relying on crontab which might not be available in all systems (I only
>>> use GNU/Linux, but what about friends of mine who have to use Windows?)
>>
>> But that doesn't matter in the context of this discussion, which is
>> DragonflyBSD; worse or better support for MS Windows doesn't matter
>> here, does it?
> 
> It only matters, if some developers are forced to work on Windows
> machines at times. 

DragonFly BSD developers? I think they would work on DragonFly BSD
(eating one's own dogfood and all that...).

Sidenote: I don't know if DragonFly BSD is more like Linux kernel, or
as Linux distribution. It would be in my opinion good idea to ask
similar projects about the impressions about SCM they use (Linux kernel,
Android, ALT Linux distribution, Debian (build tools etc.), CRUX Linux
distribution, Exherbo, grml, Source Mage GNU/Linux for impressions
on their Git usage; OpenSolaris, Conary, Heretix, Linux HA, perhaps
Mozilla for impressions on their Mercurial usage; 

IIRC ALSA moved from Mercurial to Git, so they could be of help there.

[...]
>> Git just uses different way to keep operations atomic, different way
>> of implementing transactions.

>> And probably requires transactions and locks for that. Git simply uses
>> atomic write solution for atomic update of references.
> 
> Doesn't atomic write also need locks, though on a lower level (to ensure 
> atomicity)? 

No, you can use create then rename to final place trick, making use
of the fact (assumption) that renames are atomic. And Git first write
data, then write references which are used to access this data (this
relies on pruning dangling objects).
 
I'm not saying that git does not use locks at all, because it does,
for example to edit config file, or update branch and its reflog as
atomic operation. But it needs locking in very few places.

>> Behind the scenes, at a lower level, Git does necessary delta resolving.
>> Delta chains in packs have limited length (as they have in Mercurial).
> 
> So both do snapshots - they seem more and more similar to me :) 

There are differences: Mercurial from what I understand uses forward
deltas (from older to never) while Git prefers recency order; delta
chains in Git doesn't need to form single line, but can be forest of
delta chains; Git searches for good delta basis from large range of
objects (see pack.window); there is pack index which allow for random
access as if objects were in loose format (resolving deltas behind the
scenes).

I also don't know how Mercurial deals with binary files; in Git pack
format uses binary delta from LibXDiff by Davide Libenzi (File
Differential Library), heavy modified.

>> The answer usually is: did you have this repository packed? I admit
>> that it might be considered one of disadvantages of git, this having
>> to do garbage collection from time to time... just like in C ;-)
> 
> I cloned from the official repositories. 
> 
> I hope Linus had his repository packed :) 

Well, that also depends on _when_ did you try this. In older versions
of Git pack file got from network (git:// and ssh:// protocols) was
exploded into loose objects; now is kept if it is large enough, only
expanding it to make it thick, self contained pack file.

Unless you used http:// protocol, which I think kept packs as they were,
and as dumb protocol (along ftp:// and rsync://) depends on remote
repository being well packed.

>> Well, understanding "git checkout ." doesn't require understanding
>> inner workings of git. Your friend was incorrect here. I'll agree
>> though that it is a bit of quirk in UI[1] (but I use usually
>> "git reset --hard" to reset to last committed state).
> 
> Damn - one more way how I could have archieved what I wanted...
> one more way I  didn't find. 

Well, there is a difference between "git checkout ." and
"git reset --hard", but it does not matter here.

By the way, the design of Git allowed to add lately new feature:
"git checkout --merge <file>..." to recreate conflicted merge in
specified paths. For example if you completely borked merge resolution,
and want to start from scratch.

>> Just Google for "Worse is Better". But what I actually mean that Git
>> feature set and UI has evolved from very bare-bones plumbing, adding
>> features and UI _as needed_, instead of being designed according to
>> what designer thought it was needed.
> 
> And that's how it feels to me. 
> 
> A great testing ground, but it developed too many stumbling blocks
> which keep me from trying things. 

Well, as shown in "Worse is better", evolved design wins (Lisp machines
versus Unix) :-)

> When I now use git, I only do the most basic operations: clone, pull, push, 
> add, commit, checkout. When anything else arises, I check if it is worth the 
> risk of having to read up for hours - and since that wasn't the case for the 
> last few months, I then just ignore the problem or ask someone else if he can 
> fix it. 

Understanding Git "mental model" certainly helps.

[...]
> All in all it's a UI issue - while the git UI bit me quite often, the 
> Mercurial UI just works. 

But _that_ might be because you are used to Mercurial UI, isn't it?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[0000 vk]

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2008/10/27 Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>

> Dnia poniedziałek 27. października 2008 10:29, Benoit Boissinot napisał:
> > On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:52 AM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> >>> Am Sonntag 26 Oktober 2008 19:55:09 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> >>>>
> >>>> I agree, and I think it is at least partially because of Git having
> >>>> cleaner design, even if you have to understand more terms at first.
> >>>
> >>> What do you mean by "cleaner design"?
> >>
> >> Clean _underlying_ design. Git has very nice underlying model of graph
> >> (DAG) of commits (revisions), and branches and tags as pointers to this
> >> graph.
> >
> > Git and Mercurial are very close from that point of view.
> >
> > Mercurial explicitely disallow octopus merges (and we don't think there's
> > a good reason to allow them, although I agree with Linus, they look very
> nice
> > in gitk ;) ).
>
> From what I see Mercurial disallows octopus merges (merges with more
> than two parents) because of its rigid-record database repository
> design, while Git is more like object database.  Fixed width records
> of VMS vs delimited records of Unix... There is simply place on
> zero, one or two parents (two parent fields, which can be null) in
> Mercurial changerev format.
>
> By the way flexibility of Git design allowed to add 'encoding' header
> to commit message (if commits message is encoded not in utf-8) after
> the fact, without affecting older repository data, and playing well
> with old git installations which do not understand this header.
>
> > And we don't have "branches as pointer" in core, but the bookmark
> > extension does that.
>
> I disagree. Mercurial implementation of tags is strange, and from
> what I remember and from discussion on #revctrl implementation
> of local named branches is also strange (CVS-like). They are IMHO
> not well designed.
>
> Also the 'hidden' branches after fetching from remote repository
> (hg pull) but before merging (hg update) are IMHO worse design
> than explicit remote-tracking branches in Git, especially in presence
> of multiple [named] branches in repositories.
>
> > Apart from that I think the underlying format are interchangeable,
> > someone could use the git format with the hg ui, or use revlogs
> > (the basic format of mercurial) like packs.
>
> I don't think so. The 'content addressed filesystem' idea of Git
> is quite pervasive along Git implementation and Git thoughtflows.
>
> >
> > The only special thing about revlogs is the linkrev stuff, it's a
> > pointer to the first revision that introduced an object, so we can
> > easily find what to send in our network protocol (we don't have to
> > read the manifest, ie the "tree" of objects"). linkrev can be useful
> > to speedup "hg log" too.
>
> At first I thought: what a nice idea... but then I realized that in
> distributed environment there is no way to define "first revision that
> introduced an object". Take for example the following history
> (independent introduction):
>
>  .---.---.---.---x---.---.---.
>           \
>            --x---.---.
>
> where both 'x' have the same version of an object. The top branch
> appeared first in current repository, but the bottom branch had 'x'
> with earlier timestamp (earlier authordate).
>
>
> Git just relies on the fact that traversing revision is a part of it
> that is heavily optimized and really fast. Git very much by design
> doesn't store any backlinks in repository object database.
>
> >> I have read description of Mercurial's repository format, and it is not
> >> very clear in my opinion. File changesets, bound using manifest, bound
> >> using changerev / changelog.
> >>
> >
> > just do a s/// with the git terminology:
> > filelog -> blob
> > manifest -> tree
> > changelog -> commit object
>
> True. But as I see it they are bound in reverse order in Mercurial:
> deltas are stored in filelog, filelogs are bound together in manifest,
> manifest are bound using changelog, while in Git commit object
> references tree (and parents), trees references blobs, and blob store
> content of a file. But that might be just my impression.
>
>
> .......................................................................
>
> By the way, going back to the matter of choosing version control system
> for DragonflyBSD; some time ago I have written post
>  * "Mercurial's only true "plugin" extension: inotify...
>    and can it be done in Git?"
>   http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/76661
>   (current answer: it is possible using 'assume unchanged' bit)
> about how nearly every Mercurial extension has equivalent functionality
> in Git.
>
> But what about the reverse, about the following features and
> issues in Mercurial:
>
>  * Merging in presence of criss-cross merges[1], and in presence of
>   file renames, i.e what merge-recursive does in Git.
>
>  * git-rerere, reusing recorded resolution of conflicted merges.
>   Resolving the same merge happens often if you use topic branches
>   and trial merging.
>
>  * git-grep that allows you to "and" the match criteria together,
>   and also pick a file (not a line) that matches all the criteria;
>   and of course allow searching given revision and not only working
>   directory.
>
>  * pickaxe search (git log -S) which contrary to blame/annotate
>   allow to find commit which _deleted_ given fragment.
>
>  * easy management of multiple repositories you fetch from with
>   remote-tracking branches and git-remote command.
>
>  * blame that follows block-of-line movement (it was invented by Linus
>   as a vision long time ago, but it took very long time to materialize).
>
>  * a way to review merge resolution, something that is done in git
>   by using combined diff format
>
>  * git-stash, allowing to stash away changes to go back to them later;
>   it allows to stash away even partially resolved merge conflict
>   (merge resolution in progress).
>
>  * git-filter-branch (based on cg-admin-rewrite-hist), which allow
>   to rewrite history for example to remove file which should never
>   be added to version control (for example because of copyright
>   or license).
>
> References:
> ===========
> [1] http://revctrl.org/CrissCrossMerge
>    BTW I wonder why reverting spam is made so hard on revctrl.org wiki
>
> --
> Jakub Narebski
> Poland
>

Jakub,

Do you know if git supports the equivalent of hg bundle?
Thanks.

vk

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, 0000 vk wrote:
> 2008/10/27 Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>

> > By the way, going back to the matter of choosing version control
> > system for DragonflyBSD; some time ago I have written post
> >  * "Mercurial's only true "plugin" extension: inotify...
> >    and can it be done in Git?"
> >   http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/76661
> >   (current answer: it is possible using 'assume unchanged' bit)
> > about how nearly every Mercurial extension has equivalent functionality
> > in Git.
> >
> > But what about the reverse, about the following features and
> > issues in Mercurial:
[...]

> 
> Jakub,
> 
> Do you know if git supports the equivalent of hg bundle?
> Thanks.

The equivalent of "hg bundle" (http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/hg.1.html#bundle)
would be "git bundle" (http://git.or.cz/man/git-bundle). I think
git-bundle was inspired by Mercurial feature, just like fast-import
format and bisect went in other direction.

P.S. Could you _please_ quote only relevant fragments of email you are
replying to, especially if it is so long?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Monday 27 October 2008 13:48:38 schrieben Sie:

>>> All in all it's a UI issue - while the git UI bit me quite often, the
>>> Mercurial UI just works.
>>
>> But _that_ might be because you are used to Mercurial UI, isn't it?
> 
> I rather think it is because I was used the Subversion UI before I tried git 
> and Mercurial.

I think Mercurial UI is more compatibile with Subversion UI than Git;
additionally Mercurial uses separate, different names to avoid
ambiguities: examples are 'hg rollback' and 'hg backout' for commands
which various SCM name reset and revert, sometimes referring to one
and sometimes to the other.

AFAIK Git mostly follows BitKeeper UI; it is quite natural as it was
meant as replacement for BitKeeper for Linux kernel development.

[...]
> Also, Mercurial is Python based with quite readable code and it's very easy to 
> create extensions for new uses, when I need them. 
> 
> If you know Python, creating a new Mercurial extension isn't harder than 
> creating a shell chain command for git, but it feels much cleaner and is 
> nicely integrated once it's done. You can even change the operation of basic 
> commands very easily without having to touch any existing code. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to each method.

Git was developed in true Unix tools style, as described in TAOUP i.e. 
"The Art of UNIX Programming" by ESR (http://catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/)
In "Programming Pearls" by Jon Bentley there is in one of chapters
description of prototyping 'spell' using ready UNIX tools, pipelines,
and a few of custom tools, to examine the needs of 'spell'.

One of the consequences of this type of design is that there isn't
(yet?) something like git library; this is caused by the fact that
tools (plumbing) that make up git are designed to run once, and let
operating system take care of freeing resources.

On the other hand clean and clear design of git repository made it
possible to create native Git (re)implementation in Java: the JGit
project. (Well, Git is GPLv2 and JGit/Egit is BSD 3-clause/EPL, so
reimplementation might have been needed for licensing purposes anyway.
Well, it is not _full_ implementation yet...

Besides is writing plugin in Python for Mercurial that much easier
than writing new command or stuff in C for Git? Well, perhaps it is,
as only recently there began to appear API documentation, and there
were created utility mini-libraries like strbuf, or string_list,
or parseopt.

Also often third-party projects or stuff in contrib gets incorporated
into git proper; sometimes stuff is moved from git core to contrib,
if there is no maintainer however (git-svnimport, git-p4import).
Git repository has many roots: one from git core, one with gitk 
(graphical history viewer), one from what was git mail tools, one
with gitweb (web interface), and one with git-gui (graphical commit
tool).


The extending via plugins idea used by Mercurial, so succesfull IMHO
for Firefox, and I think quite successfull for ikiwiki for example, is
not without drawbacks, especially that there is no plugins clearinghouse,
and plugins are required for what is considered pretty required 
functionality, like bisect before hg 1.0.

See also blog post on vcscompare: "Plugins In Version Control"
http://vcscompare.blogspot.com/2008/06/plugins-in-version-cotnrol.html

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Brandon Casey]

Jakub Narebski wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
>> Also, looking at git, git users still have to garbage collect regularly, which 
>> shows to me that the design wasn't really cleaner. 
> 
> Well, they have to a lot less than they used to, and there is 
> "git gc --auto" that can be put in crontab safely.

I think you missed the most convincing argument _for_ explicit garbage collection.

By allowing explicit repository packing, git allows you to delay a cpu intensive
operation til later, when time doesn't matter, like at the end of the day right
before I go home. It also allows more cpu intensive delta/compression algorithms
to be used.

By contrast, mercurial performs deltafication and compression on each commit.
So, acceptable commit speed must be weighed against the complexity of the
deltafication/compression algorithm and file format.

-brandon

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Brandon Casey wrote:
> Jakub Narebski wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > >
> > > Also, looking at git, git users still have to garbage collect regularly, which 
> > > shows to me that the design wasn't really cleaner. 
> > 
> > Well, they have to a lot less than they used to, and there is 
> > "git gc --auto" that can be put in crontab safely.
> 
> I think you missed the most convincing argument _for_ explicit garbage collection.
> 
> By allowing explicit repository packing, git allows you to delay a cpu intensive
> operation til later, when time doesn't matter, like at the end of the day right
> before I go home. It also allows more cpu intensive delta/compression algorithms
> to be used.
> 
> By contrast, mercurial performs deltafication and compression on each commit.
> So, acceptable commit speed must be weighed against the complexity of the
> deltafication/compression algorithm and file format.

On the one hand one can use different compression for loose (immediate)
and packed (in a free time) objects.

On the other access from "smart" client (git://, ssh://, future "smart"
HTTP server) results in creating a pack, so we cannot allow for too
tight pack compression, or to be more exact too much CPU load taken.

The ability to vary 'quality' of pack compression is very useful to
distinguish between very loosely packed fast-import pack, and tightly
repacked in free time.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 19:01:48 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
> AFAIK Git mostly follows BitKeeper UI; it is quite natural as it was
> meant as replacement for BitKeeper for Linux kernel development.

It is a great choice for an SCM intended for kernel development where everyone 
knows bitkeeper, but might not be optimal for other tasks. 

> Besides is writing plugin in Python for Mercurial that much easier
> than writing new command or stuff in C for Git? Well, perhaps it is,
> as only recently there began to appear API documentation, and there
> were created utility mini-libraries like strbuf, or string_list,
> or parseopt.

Yes, for two main reasons: 

1) Writing Python is much easier and quicker than writing C, especially when 
you can just experiment with the Python interpreter (or better still: with 
ipython). No memory management hassle, no strange compiler bugs, no stray 
pointers. Just plain writing what you want to do. But if you need C speed, you 
can still include parts written in C - where you really need it. For all other 
cases you have more readable and far more compact code. 

2) You can easily access every core function, and you can replace every 
command. 
You don't have to invent a "git foolog" command. Instead you can just adapt 
the regular log to do a foolog which people can use via "hg log". 

> Also often third-party projects or stuff in contrib gets incorporated
> into git proper; sometimes stuff is moved from git core to contrib,
> if there is no maintainer however (git-svnimport, git-p4import).
> Git repository has many roots: one from git core, one with gitk
> (graphical history viewer), one from what was git mail tools, one
> with gitweb (web interface), and one with git-gui (graphical commit
> tool).

Maybe I should include the extensions in the codeswarm to have matching 
repositories. 

> The extending via plugins idea used by Mercurial, so succesfull IMHO
> for Firefox, and I think quite successfull for ikiwiki for example, is
> not without drawbacks, especially that there is no plugins clearinghouse,
> and plugins are required for what is considered pretty required
> functionality, like bisect before hg 1.0.

But they can just be included in the core distibution once they become central 
enough. 

It's a way of allowing people to add functionality they miss without forcing 
them to mess with core code instantly. 

> See also blog post on vcscompare: "Plugins In Version Control"
> http://vcscompare.blogspot.com/2008/06/plugins-in-version-cotnrol.html

I just read it, and it didn't convince me, because in my opinion a VCS has 
certain core functions which it should provide to everyone, and other 
functionality which only certain people need. 

For example I normally don't need rebasing, mercurial queues, transplanting 
and similar. Why should my tool include the commands by default? 

The defaults should be the most common way to use the tool, so people can 
easily learn it. 

Advanced stuff can be added with extensions. 

And because the most used plugins are distributed with Mercurial, I can also 
activate them when I don't control the Mercurial installation - and should 
something be missing which I need, I can just download and activate a plugin 
without having to compile anything, since they are simply Python modules. 

Just set 
[extensions]
foo = /blah/foo.py

in ~/.hgrc and the foo plugin is active. 

Gits missing plugin system might just be a reason, why its usability still 
suffers from many problems: They have to do everything for everyone all the 
time, so the chances are high, that they won't do it really good for anyone 
(but the main git coders). 

Best wishes, 
Arne

-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Miklos Vajna]

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On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 09:48:50PM +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> wrote:
> 1) Writing Python is much easier and quicker than writing C, especially when 
> you can just experiment with the Python interpreter (or better still: with 
> ipython). No memory management hassle, no strange compiler bugs, no stray 
> pointers. Just plain writing what you want to do. But if you need C speed, you 
> can still include parts written in C - where you really need it. For all other 
> cases you have more readable and far more compact code. 

You compare Python to C here, but did you realize that in git you can
write your git command in any language you want? Of course it's
recommended to do it in C/shell/perl if you want to get it included in
git.git, but that's just a decision.

> 2) You can easily access every core function, and you can replace every 
> command. 
> You don't have to invent a "git foolog" command. Instead you can just adapt 
> the regular log to do a foolog which people can use via "hg log". 

IIRC the main reason git aliases can't overwrite git commands is because
that would break scripts relying on the output of existing git commands.
Given that I install such an extension, won't my script break?

> The defaults should be the most common way to use the tool, so people can 
> easily learn it. 
> 
> Advanced stuff can be added with extensions. 

From a user's point of view, I think external git commands and such hg
plugins are equal. The user instally the "foo"
extension/command/plugin/whatever and gets the "git/hg foo" command.

> And because the most used plugins are distributed with Mercurial, I can also 
> activate them when I don't control the Mercurial installation - and should 
> something be missing which I need, I can just download and activate a plugin 
> without having to compile anything, since they are simply Python modules. 
> 
> Just set 
> [extensions]
> foo = /blah/foo.py
> 
> in ~/.hgrc and the foo plugin is active. 

Same for git, as long as it's written in a scripting language; you
should include git-foo in PATH then you can use git foo.

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 22:07:16 schrieb Miklos Vajna:
> You compare Python to C here, but did you realize that in git you can
> write your git command in any language you want? Of course it's
> recommended to do it in C/shell/perl if you want to get it included in
> git.git, but that's just a decision.

I was asked explicitely about the difference of writing a Mercurial extension 
and of writing some addition for git in C, so I answered that. 

> IIRC the main reason git aliases can't overwrite git commands is because
> that would break scripts relying on the output of existing git commands.
> Given that I install such an extension, won't my script break?

Since that "script" will likely be an extension which will use the core 
function instead of the UI command, it won't break. 

Stuff which does command line parsing can naturally break when I change the 
output. But it can also directly use the advanced features. 

> From a user's point of view, I think external git commands and such hg
> plugins are equal. The user instally the "foo"
> extension/command/plugin/whatever and gets the "git/hg foo" command.
[snip]
> Same for git, as long as it's written in a scripting language; you
> should include git-foo in PATH then you can use git foo.

Means git can provide additional commands and only has the limitation that I 
can't overwrite the basic commands, right? 

But we're slowly moving off topic, aside from "OK, git also has extensions - 
they are called external commands". 

Best wishes, 
Arne


-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
-- Infinite Hands: http://infinite-hands.draketo.de - singing a part of the 
history of free software.
-- Ein Würfel System: http://1w6.org - einfach saubere (Rollenspiel-) Regeln.

-- PGP/GnuPG: http://draketo.de/inhalt/ich/pubkey.txt

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Jakub Narebski]

Dnia poniedziałek 27. października 2008 21:48, Arne Babenhauserheide napisała:
> Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 19:01:48 schrieb Jakub Narebski:
 
> > Besides is writing plugin in Python for Mercurial that much easier
> > than writing new command or stuff in C for Git? Well, perhaps it is,
> > as only recently there began to appear API documentation, and there
> > were created utility mini-libraries like strbuf, or string_list,
> > or parseopt.
> 
> Yes, for two main reasons: 
> 
> 1) Writing Python is much easier and quicker than writing C, especially when 
> you can just experiment with the Python interpreter (or better still: with 
> ipython). No memory management hassle, no strange compiler bugs, no stray 
> pointers. Just plain writing what you want to do. But if you need C speed, you 
> can still include parts written in C - where you really need it. For all other 
> cases you have more readable and far more compact code. 

In Git you can write in C, using (underdocumented) git API, or you can
script (in shell script, in Perl, in Python, in Ruby) using git plumbing
commands which are meant for scripting (or bindings in appropriate
language).
 
Most new features, like git-remote tool to manage interaction with
multiple remote repositories, each of which can have multiple branches,
start as a shell or Perl script, and when they and their UI mature they
get converted into C (made into builtin). Builtinification is done not
only for performance, but also for portability (think Perl support on
MS Windows).

So in Mercurial you can write in Python, or you can write in C; in Git
you can write in any scripting language (e.g. shell script, Perl, Tcl/Tk),
or you can write in C... yes, I know it is oversimplification...

> 2) You can easily access every core function, and you can replace every 
> command. 
> You don't have to invent a "git foolog" command. Instead you can just adapt 
> the regular log to do a foolog which people can use via "hg log".

Well, if I remember correctly if you drop git-foo in EXEC_PATH, then
you would be able to call it as "git foo". So adding commands is easy.

Git provides a few entry points which can be used to extend
functionality. They are: hooks system; gitattributes to define custom
merge, diff and clean/smudge (checkout) drivers per file (pathname);
custom merge strategies; EXTRENAL_DIFF and EXTERNAL_GREP.

I'm not sure if other messing with core functions is a good idea to
have such ability accessible.

> > The extending via plugins idea used by Mercurial, so succesfull IMHO
> > for Firefox, and I think quite successfull for ikiwiki for example, is
> > not without drawbacks, especially that there is no plugins clearinghouse,
> > and plugins are required for what is considered pretty required
> > functionality, like bisect before hg 1.0.
> 
> But they can just be included in the core distibution once they become central 
> enough. 

Having some extensions blessed to be included with core program (like
ikiwiki with goodstuff, and similar to Git with contrib/ section)
solves some problems of relying on extensions for basic functionality.
I for example consider bisect and patch+mail workflow tools to be basic,
while patch queue management (well, patch management in general) to be
something that can be built on top of SCM, like StGit, Guilt, TopGit
for Git, or mq (Mercurial Queues) for Mercurial.
 
>
> It's a way of allowing people to add functionality they miss without forcing 
> them to mess with core code instantly. 

The problem with extensions IMVVVHO is that they don't require to
follow strict "inclusion in core" standards, which means that there
is no pressure to add them to core... which for example leads to
including bisect in core only since hg v1.0, "because it is available
as extension".

Requiring to use large amount of extensions to having required
functionality is also one of bad consequences of extension based
development, although having default set of extensions that can be
turned on via some metaextension / metapackage (like ikiwiki's
goodstuff) reduces impact of this.
 
Extensions / modules / plugins are good in projects with high
barriers of development, like Mozilla / Firefox, GNU Emacs, etc.
but I am not sure if it doesn't make for slower core development...

> Gits missing plugin system might just be a reason, why its usability still 
> suffers from many problems: They have to do everything for everyone all the 
> time, so the chances are high, that they won't do it really good for anyone 
> (but the main git coders). 

Well, Git doesn't have plugin system, but is easily scriptable...

And, at least according to annual Git User's Survey results (on git wiki)
many people create their custom scripts and scriplets to make their work
with SCM easy...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Miklos Vajna]

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On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:30:44PM +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> wrote:
> Means git can provide additional commands and only has the limitation that I 
> can't overwrite the basic commands, right? 

Yes. And in general the API is the output of the plumbing commands, not
the API of libgit which is totally unstable.

> But we're slowly moving off topic, aside from "OK, git also has extensions - 
> they are called external commands". 

I think we're offtopic since the dragonfly list is not in cc. :)

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Nicolas Pitre]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008, Jakub Narebski wrote:

> On the other access from "smart" client (git://, ssh://, future "smart"
> HTTP server) results in creating a pack, so we cannot allow for too
> tight pack compression, or to be more exact too much CPU load taken.

Don't forget that, in those cases, the created pack for streaming is 
copying chunks of data from existing packs for most objects, effectively 
reusing for free the work that has previously been done to tightly 
compress those packs.


Nicolas

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[walt]

walt wrote:
> No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here
> will know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd
> project (www.dragonflybsd.org).
>
> Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote
> for your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group,
> accessible via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org...

The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one
for svn.  Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror
in hg, and that's being debated now.

I've already learned a lot from following this topic in both
lists and it seems this is a topic of great interest to many,
so I'll continue reading in both places.

Thanks!

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, walt wrote:

> walt wrote:
> > No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here will 
> > know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd project 
> > (www.dragonflybsd.org).
> >
> > Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote for 
> > your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group, accessible 
> > via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org...
> 
> The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one for svn.  
> Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror in hg, and 
> that's being debated now.

While many may say that that is a half-baked solution, I actually like it.  
Mercurial and Git are pretty similar in their concept (if not in how the 
data is actually stored).

Note that with git fast-export and hg fast-import, it should be relatively 
simple to convert from one data format to the other, even incrementally.

And for the other direction, you could use hg fast-export from the 
fast-export.git repository (I am working on a better one at the moment, 
too, so that incremental fast-export would be possible, too).

Ciao,
Dscho

Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Peter Krefting]

Johannes Schindelin:

> While many may say that that is a half-baked solution, I actually
> like it. Mercurial and Git are pretty similar in their concept (if
> not in how the data is actually stored).

That touches on something that I have been thinking about for a while.

How difficult are the storage formats? Would it be possible, in a
reasonable amount of work, to add support for the Mercurial protocol
and format in "git clone", so that I could clone a Mercurial repository
and work on it with Git, and then possibly use "git push" to possibly
push the result back to Mercurial?

It seems to me that use of DVCS is polarising between Git, Mercurial
and Bzr. It would be nice to have easy interoperability between the
systems, at least as far as can be covered by the lowest common
denominator of what they support. I would love to be able to use Git to
clone a Bzr repository that I need to be able to access, since bzr is
just different enough from Git to be annoying. Same goes for Mercurial.
And I am sure that users of the other tools feel the same.

Would it be possible to design a common transfer format that could be
implemented by all three (and that would be a little smarter than
fast-export/fast-import)?

-- 
\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, Peter Krefting wrote:

> How difficult are the storage formats? Would it be possible, in a
> reasonable amount of work, to add support for the Mercurial protocol
> and format in "git clone", so that I could clone a Mercurial repository
> and work on it with Git, and then possibly use "git push" to possibly
> push the result back to Mercurial?

There was talk about imitating Mercurial's wire protocol in order to have 
an efficient HTTP server.  Shawn is working on that front;

We discussed it briefly, and there might be some cute ways to copy it: 
since we are not append-only, we have to download the pack index first 
(which is not downloaded ATM, as we generate it from the downloaded pack 
while verifying it).  With that index, we can determine which parts we 
need in order to regenerate the pack; it would still be pretty stupid when 
there are a lot of branches and we are really only interested in one of 
them.

But I doubt that it will be possible to use the wire protocol to pull/push 
between different DVCSes.  I _strongly_ doubt that the SHA-1s in the 
Mercurial repositories could _ever_ be reused in Git mirrors of them, as 
our data format (on which the hash depends) is different.

> It would be nice to have easy interoperability between the systems, at 
> least as far as can be covered by the lowest common denominator of what 
> they support. I would love to be able to use Git to clone a Bzr 
> repository that I need to be able to access, since bzr is just different 
> enough from Git to be annoying. Same goes for Mercurial. And I am sure 
> that users of the other tools feel the same.

Wasn't bzr touting it as one of their major features that they could have 
foreign-scm remotes?  If I remembered that correctly, that might be the 
route you want to take.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Matthieu Moy]

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

> Wasn't bzr touting it as one of their major features that they could have 
> foreign-scm remotes?  If I remembered that correctly, that might be the 
> route you want to take.

Yes, see http://bazaar-vcs.org/BzrForeignBranches . That can be
compared to git-svn for git, except that one uses the exact same
command set to interact with the remotes (i.e. you "bzr push" to an
svn repository, while you would "git svn dcommit" with git).

There are read-only implementations of Git and Mercurial foreign
branches. AFAIK, unfortunately, they're more proof of concepts than
real "production ready" plugins.

-- 
Matthieu

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Nicolas Pitre]

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, Peter Krefting wrote:

> Johannes Schindelin:
> 
> > While many may say that that is a half-baked solution, I actually
> > like it. Mercurial and Git are pretty similar in their concept (if
> > not in how the data is actually stored).
> 
> That touches on something that I have been thinking about for a while.
> 
> How difficult are the storage formats? Would it be possible, in a
> reasonable amount of work, to add support for the Mercurial protocol
> and format in "git clone", so that I could clone a Mercurial repository
> and work on it with Git, and then possibly use "git push" to possibly
> push the result back to Mercurial?

The git protocol is intimately tied to its repository storage format, 
making any interoperability at the protocol level really hard.  It is 
probably easier to perform the clone/push operations with native tools 
and do the interoperability dance locally between repositories, possibly 
with some wrappers hiding all the details.  In the end you could still 
be doing a "git push" but the native tool is best for handling transfer 
protocols.  Yes, there is git-cvsserver outperforming a real CVS server, 
but that's another story.


Nicolas

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Pieter de Bie]

On 28 okt 2008, at 15:41, Peter Krefting wrote:

> It seems to me that use of DVCS is polarising between Git, Mercurial
> and Bzr. It would be nice to have easy interoperability between the
> systems, at least as far as can be covered by the lowest common
> denominator of what they support. I would love to be able to use Git  
> to
> clone a Bzr repository that I need to be able to access, since bzr is
> just different enough from Git to be annoying. Same goes for  
> Mercurial.
> And I am sure that users of the other tools feel the same.
>
> Would it be possible to design a common transfer format that could be
> implemented by all three (and that would be a little smarter than
> fast-export/fast-import)?

What would you want that the fast-export/imports are lacking? I think  
they are excellent tools to build some integration on.

You might want to look at my git-bzr script (http://github.com/pieter/git-bzr/tree/master 
), which I created so I could use
bazaar branches easily in git. It allows you to fetch a bzr branch,  
merge it in with your local work, and then push it out again:

	git bzr add bzr-branch ~/bazaar/something
	git bzr fetch bzr-branch
	git merge bzr/bzr-branch
	git bzr push bzr-branch

It's quite crude, but it's also only 100 lines or so and does what I  
need. It should also be simple enough to adapt it to also incorporate  
hg. When I needed the bzr integration, I looked into hg as well, but  
there wasn't a hg fast-import yet. If I understand dscho correctly,  
that exists now, so it should be easy enough to integrate that as well.

- Pieter

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Andreas Ericsson]

Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Am Montag 27 Oktober 2008 22:07:16 schrieb Miklos Vajna:
>> IIRC the main reason git aliases can't overwrite git commands is because
>> that would break scripts relying on the output of existing git commands.
>> Given that I install such an extension, won't my script break?
> 
> Since that "script" will likely be an extension which will use the core 
> function instead of the UI command, it won't break. 
> 
> Stuff which does command line parsing can naturally break when I change the 
> output. But it can also directly use the advanced features. 
> 

But then you're back with a single language, taking valuable freedom
away from the addon author. How many perl gurus have skipped writing
stuff for hg because it's a "python-or-bust" thing?

And please don't give me that rubbish of "but Python is obviously better
than C". Which one's true (if any) depends only on how you define "better".

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Am Dienstag 28 Oktober 2008 18:48:28 schrieb Andreas Ericsson:
> > Stuff which does command line parsing can naturally break when I change
> > the output. But it can also directly use the advanced features.
>
> But then you're back with a single language, taking valuable freedom
> away from the addon author. 

Not really. 

Extension authors just have to take care to keep their output compatible. 

You can do command line parsing just like with git, but additionally you can 
change the workings of the basic commands, but then you have to take care to 
keep the output compatible. 

For example when I wrote the group extension, I made sure that the log only 
gives grouped output, when it is explicitely asked to do so, either via 
--group or via the grouped_log=True setting in .hgrc. 

> How many perl gurus have skipped writing
> stuff for hg because it's a "python-or-bust" thing?

How many Python people decided to write an extension for hg, because it can 
very nicely be accessed via Python? 

(and which one of these has the higher effect? :) )

Best wishes, 
Arne


-- My stuff: http://draketo.de - stories, songs, poems, programs and stuff :)
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Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Miklos Vajna]

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On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 04:33:54PM +0100, Pieter de Bie <pdebie@ai.rug.nl> wrote:
> fast-import yet. If I understand dscho correctly, that exists now, so it 
> should be easy enough to integrate that as well.

That's new to me. Theodore Ts'o once mentioned on this list that there
is a "hg fast-export" but actually he just referred to "there is a
git2hg conversion tool in hg's contrib dir" and it has nothing with
fast-import.

There is an other reference to hg fast-import:

http://www.nabble.com/cvs2git-2.1-causes-git-fast-import-to-exit-with-an-error-td16049922.html

but I found no code so far.

To sum up, I'm not so sure about a working hg fast-import is available
at the moment.

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Randal L. Schwartz]

>>>>> "Andreas" == Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se> writes:

Andreas> And please don't give me that rubbish of "but Python is obviously
Andreas> better than C". Which one's true (if any) depends only on how you
Andreas> define "better".

But any way you define it, Perl is "better" than either of those!

:-)


-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[SZEDER Gábor]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 08:11:36PM +0100, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> > How many perl gurus have skipped writing
> > stuff for hg because it's a "python-or-bust" thing?
> 
> How many Python people decided to write an extension for hg, because it can 
> very nicely be accessed via Python? 

And wouldn't they contribute at all, if there would be hg bindings for
other programming languages, would they?


Best,
Gábor

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Miklos Vajna]

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On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 08:12:34PM +0100, Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> wrote:
> To sum up, I'm not so sure about a working hg fast-import is available
> at the moment.

I wrote too fast.

There is a minimal implementation here:

http://hg.opensource.lshift.net/hg-fastimport/

(I haven't tried it yet myself.)

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Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Theodore Tso]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 08:12:34PM +0100, Miklos Vajna wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 04:33:54PM +0100, Pieter de Bie <pdebie@ai.rug.nl> wrote:
> > fast-import yet. If I understand dscho correctly, that exists now, so it 
> > should be easy enough to integrate that as well.
> 
> That's new to me. Theodore Ts'o once mentioned on this list that there
> is a "hg fast-export" but actually he just referred to "there is a
> git2hg conversion tool in hg's contrib dir" and it has nothing with
> fast-import.

The code I was referring to was called hg-fast-export, which is part
of the "fast export" tools that front-end into git fast-import.  The
git repository can be found here:

	http://repo.or.cz/w/fast-export.git
	git://repo.or.cz/fast-export.git

I ended up using a very customized version of that script to convert
the hg e2fsprogs repository to git.

In the past I've looked at the possibility of creating a
bi-directional, incremental gateway between hg and git repositories.
The main thing which makes this difficult is that hg stores tags
in-band inside the change-controlled .hgtags file.  This means that if
you cut a release, tag it, and then create a commit to further modify
the repository, the new commit is descended from the tag commit,
whereas in git, the tag is a "bookmark" --- perhaps signed via GPG,
but not part of the revision history.

I think the git method is much more sane, but what it means is that
topologically, the commit tree for git and hg can never be identical.
It also means that if you add a tag to a git tree after making several
commits on that branch, how you reflect that in the hg repository is
highly problematic.  Do you rewrite the branch?  Do you add the tag
later on, disturbing the parent-child relationship of later commits?
How do you keep track of when a tag hg repository topology if you are
trying to maintain a bidirectional mapping between commits?

It's not impossible, but it makes it much more difficult, since in the
hg world, tag commits can be inserted between arbitrary commits.  This
also means that if you want to create a bidrectional gateway between
hg and git, it has to be a single gateway so it can keep track of this
state information.  If you try to have multiple gateways they would
need to synchronize on when a tag entered the hg universe, and with
what commit ID (and what timestamp).

						- Ted

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Miklos Vajna]

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On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 05:31:44PM -0400, Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu> wrote:
> The code I was referring to was called hg-fast-export, which is part
> of the "fast export" tools that front-end into git fast-import.  The
> git repository can be found here:
> 
> 	http://repo.or.cz/w/fast-export.git
> 	git://repo.or.cz/fast-export.git
> 
> I ended up using a very customized version of that script to convert
> the hg e2fsprogs repository to git.

My bad, I did not quote the article properly, so here is what I meant:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/42298

and I just wanted to say that this one does not use fast-import, so it's
not really a "hg-fast-import" (it's not something that can parse the
output of git-fast-export).

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Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[Miles Bader]

walt <w41ter@gmail.com> writes:
> The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one
> for svn.  Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror
> in hg, and that's being debated now.

Boy, whoever has the popcorn concession must be making a fortune!

-Miles

-- 
Infancy, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven
lies about us.' The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[Shawn O. Pearce]

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, walt wrote:
> 
> > walt wrote:
> > > No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here will 
> > > know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd project 
> > > (www.dragonflybsd.org).
> > >
> > > Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote for 
> > > your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group, accessible 
> > > via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org...
> > 
> > The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one for svn.  
> > Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror in hg, and 
> > that's being debated now.

FWIW at the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit this past weekend
we had a "Git vs. Hg" talk with both Git and Hg represented by
contributors to each project.

Slides are online here:

  http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcfz2dg9_0hqqz3dsr

-- 
Shawn.

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[Boyd Lynn Gerber]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
>> On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, walt wrote:
>>> walt wrote:
>>>> No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here will
>>>> know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd project
>>>> (www.dragonflybsd.org).
>>>>
>>>> Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote for
>>>> your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group, accessible
>>>> via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org...
>>>
>>> The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one for svn.
>>> Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror in hg, and
>>> that's being debated now.
>
> FWIW at the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit this past weekend
> we had a "Git vs. Hg" talk with both Git and Hg represented by
> contributors to each project.
>
> Slides are online here:
>
>  http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcfz2dg9_0hqqz3dsr

But how do I save the presentation?  I do not seem to be able to do it.  I 
would like to view it off-line.

Thanks,

--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb@zenez.com>
ZENEZ	1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah  84047

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Boyd Lynn Gerber wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
> > Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> > > On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, walt wrote:
> > > > walt wrote:
> > > > > No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here 
> > > > > will know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd 
> > > > > project (www.dragonflybsd.org).
> > > > >
> > > > > Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote 
> > > > > for your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group, 
> > > > > accessible via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org...
> > > >
> > > > The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one for 
> > > > svn. Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror in 
> > > > hg, and that's being debated now.
> >
> > FWIW at the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit this past weekend we 
> > had a "Git vs. Hg" talk with both Git and Hg represented by 
> > contributors to each project.
> >
> > Slides are online here:
> >
> >  http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcfz2dg9_0hqqz3dsr
> 
> But how do I save the presentation?  I do not seem to be able to do it.  
> I would like to view it off-line.

Just an idea: print to PDF?  There is a link "print slides" on the lower 
right.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial

[Boyd Lynn Gerber]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Boyd Lynn Gerber wrote:
>> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
>>> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, walt wrote:
>>>>> walt wrote:
>>>>>> No, no, I'm not the one calling for a vote.  You old-timers here
>>>>>> will know the name Matt Dillon, who is leading the dragonflybsd
>>>>>> project (www.dragonflybsd.org).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Matt is the one who is calling for the vote in his thread "Vote
>>>>>> for your source control system" in the dragonfly.kernel group,
>>>>>> accessible via nntp://nntp.dragonflybsd.org...
>>>>>
>>>>> The official vote was 19 to 19, plus one for perforce and one for
>>>>> svn. Matt has proposed a primary git repository and a mirror in
>>>>> hg, and that's being debated now.
>>>
>>> FWIW at the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit this past weekend we
>>> had a "Git vs. Hg" talk with both Git and Hg represented by
>>> contributors to each project.
>>>
>>> Slides are online here:
>>>
>>>  http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcfz2dg9_0hqqz3dsr
>>
>> But how do I save the presentation?  I do not seem to be able to do it.
>> I would like to view it off-line.
>
> Just an idea: print to PDF?  There is a link "print slides" on the lower
> right.

That worked.  I had to make my window full screen to see the option.  It 
did not show-up in my normal window.


Thanks,

--
Boyd Gerber <gerberb@zenez.com>
ZENEZ	1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah  84047

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Florian Weimer]

* Theodore Tso:

> In the past I've looked at the possibility of creating a
> bi-directional, incremental gateway between hg and git repositories.
> The main thing which makes this difficult is that hg stores tags
> in-band inside the change-controlled .hgtags file.  This means that if
> you cut a release, tag it, and then create a commit to further modify
> the repository, the new commit is descended from the tag commit,
> whereas in git, the tag is a "bookmark" --- perhaps signed via GPG,
> but not part of the revision history.

Couldn't you just keep the .hgtags file and have everyone interested
in the tags use special scripts?

(Admittedly, I'm horribly totally by Git's behavior in this area.  I
haven't figured out yet under what circumstances tags are pushed and
pulled, so I'm not totally opposed to the Mercurial model. 8-/)

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Santi Béjar]

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 9:06 AM, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
>
> (Admittedly, I'm horribly totally by Git's behavior in this area.  I
> haven't figured out yet under what circumstances tags are pushed and
> pulled, so I'm not totally opposed to the Mercurial model. 8-/)

Tag are pushed when you tell it so, and pulled if they are pointing to
the history you have, or you can ask to fetch them explicitly.

HTH,
Santi

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?) (was: Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial)

[Peter Krefting]

Hi!

Pieter de Bie:

> What would you want that the fast-export/imports are lacking? I think
> they are excellent tools to build some integration on.

Speed. I am cloning from a rather overloaded server on the other side
of the globe (the US). If I were to go the fast-export/import route, I
fear it would take even longer.

> You might want to look at my git-bzr script

Looks very interesting. *adding to my things-to-examine list*

-- 
\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Jakub Narebski]

Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
> * Theodore Tso:
> 
> > In the past I've looked at the possibility of creating a
> > bi-directional, incremental gateway between hg and git repositories.
> > The main thing which makes this difficult is that hg stores tags
> > in-band inside the change-controlled .hgtags file.  This means that if
> > you cut a release, tag it, and then create a commit to further modify
> > the repository, the new commit is descended from the tag commit,
> > whereas in git, the tag is a "bookmark" --- perhaps signed via GPG,
> > but not part of the revision history.
> 
> Couldn't you just keep the .hgtags file and have everyone interested
> in the tags use special scripts?
> 
> (Admittedly, I'm horribly totally by Git's behavior in this area.  I
> haven't figured out yet under what circumstances tags are pushed and
> pulled, so I'm not totally opposed to the Mercurial model. 8-/)

I think you don't understand the issue here.

First, I think that we all agree here that by definition tags should
named reference (for example 'v1.0' or '1.0') to some immutable
snapshot of a state of repository, so for example when somebody says
'v1.0' everybody knows what it is.  In Git tags are immutable (you
can't checkout a tag, you can only checkout state pointed by tag)
external pointers to commits in the DAG (graph) of revisions.

Global tags (tags used to mark releases like 'v1.0') have to _not
versioned_ and _transferable_.  Transferable (global) because we want
to know for example what 'v1.0' version was in each clone / each
repository.  Non-versioned because we want to have the same set of
tags independent on what branch we are (when we are on 'master', we
want to be able to know about 'v1.0.1' which is on 'maint'), and what
revision we have checked out (for example during bisection, we want to
be able to compare to 'v1.0' even if we have checked out revision
which is earlier than 'v1.0').

Do you agree that global tags should be both non-versioned and
trasferable?

Now Mercurial has chosen to use in-tree '.hgtags' file to have global
tags transferable.  Never mind the fact that it had to treat this file
in special way to have it non-versioned (as opposed to for example
.*ignore file, which should be both transferable and versioned); the
fact that in-tree file is used means that tag is visible to outside
(transferable) only after you commit changes in .hgtags file.

In Git tags are external to object database; they reside in
refs/tags/* namespace.  They are of course non-versioned, as not being
in-tree.  In default configuration however (from what I understand) if
you transfer (get) some tagged commit, you also get a tag that points
to transferred commit.  You don't need to create "PROJECT 1.0" (or
"Tagged v1.0") commit to make tag visible to outside.


In short, if you want to have bi-directional gateway between Mercurial
and Git, Git has to be limited:
 * no octopus merges (with more than two parents)
 * always create 'tagging commits' (bump version number for example)
   for tagging purposes on Mercurial side.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Florian Weimer]

* Jakub Narebski:

> Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
>> * Theodore Tso:
>> 
>> > In the past I've looked at the possibility of creating a
>> > bi-directional, incremental gateway between hg and git repositories.
>> > The main thing which makes this difficult is that hg stores tags
>> > in-band inside the change-controlled .hgtags file.  This means that if
>> > you cut a release, tag it, and then create a commit to further modify
>> > the repository, the new commit is descended from the tag commit,
>> > whereas in git, the tag is a "bookmark" --- perhaps signed via GPG,
>> > but not part of the revision history.
>> 
>> Couldn't you just keep the .hgtags file and have everyone interested
>> in the tags use special scripts?
>> 
>> (Admittedly, I'm horribly totally by Git's behavior in this area.  I
>> haven't figured out yet under what circumstances tags are pushed and
>> pulled, so I'm not totally opposed to the Mercurial model. 8-/)
>
> I think you don't understand the issue here.

Probably yes.

> Do you agree that global tags should be both non-versioned and
> trasferable?

Yes, I do.  In case of Git, I've got trouble with understanding how to
actually implement the "transferable" part with Git.  The Mercurial
way is easier to understand, but it means that tags may need some sort
of "tag at this revision" qualifier to disambiguate, which is rather
problematic.

> Now Mercurial has chosen to use in-tree '.hgtags' file to have global
> tags transferable.  Never mind the fact that it had to treat this file
> in special way to have it non-versioned

Oops, thought this file was versioned.  Things like

  <http://tycoon.hpl.hp.com/changeset/932:931d181e9f58/.hgtags>

suggest it was at some point.

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Florian Weimer]

* Florian Weimer:

>> Now Mercurial has chosen to use in-tree '.hgtags' file to have global
>> tags transferable.  Never mind the fact that it had to treat this file
>> in special way to have it non-versioned
>
> Oops, thought this file was versioned.  Things like
>
>   <http://tycoon.hpl.hp.com/changeset/932:931d181e9f58/.hgtags>
>
> suggest it was at some point.

Okay, checked it--.hgtags files are in fact versioned.  So my
suggestion to preserve the .hgtags file on the Git side remains.

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Jakub Narebski]

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Jakub Narebski:
>> Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
>>> * Theodore Tso:
>>> 
>>>> In the past I've looked at the possibility of creating a
>>>> bi-directional, incremental gateway between hg and git repositories.
>>>> The main thing which makes this difficult is that hg stores tags
>>>> in-band inside the change-controlled .hgtags file.  This means that if
>>>> you cut a release, tag it, and then create a commit to further modify
>>>> the repository, the new commit is descended from the tag commit,
>>>> whereas in git, the tag is a "bookmark" --- perhaps signed via GPG,
>>>> but not part of the revision history.
>>> 
>>> Couldn't you just keep the .hgtags file and have everyone interested
>>> in the tags use special scripts?
>>> 
>>> (Admittedly, I'm horribly totally by Git's behavior in this area.  I
>>> haven't figured out yet under what circumstances tags are pushed and
>>> pulled, so I'm not totally opposed to the Mercurial model. 8-/)

>> Do you agree that global tags should be both non-versioned and
>> trasferable?
> 
> Yes, I do.  In case of Git, I've got trouble with understanding how to
> actually implement the "transferable" part with Git.  The Mercurial
> way is easier to understand, but it means that tags may need some sort
> of "tag at this revision" qualifier to disambiguate, which is rather
> problematic.

In first page of git-fetch(1):

     When <refspec> stores the fetched result in  tracking  branches,  the  tags
     that  point  at  these branches are automatically followed. This is done by
     first fetching from the remote using  the  given  <refspec>s,  and  if  the
     repository has objects that are pointed by remote tags that it does not yet
     have, then fetch those missing tags. If the other end has tags  that  point
     at branches you are not interested in, you will not get them.

You push tags explicitly (using "tag <tagname>" refspec, or specifying
--tags, --all or --mirror, or setting it up in a config) in git.
 
>> Now Mercurial has chosen to use in-tree '.hgtags' file to have global
>> tags transferable.  Never mind the fact that it had to treat this file
>> in special way to have it non-versioned
> 
> Oops, thought this file was versioned.  Things like
> 
>   <http://tycoon.hpl.hp.com/changeset/932:931d181e9f58/.hgtags>
> 
> suggest it was at some point.

It is half-versioned... :-X  From what I remember of discussion on
#revctrl and reading hgbok it is treated in special way: if you
switch branches or rewind to some older version, .hgtags is always
checked out the most recent version.

I don't know how Mercurial deals with situation where one reposityr
added one tag, and other repository add other...

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Theodore Tso]

On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 11:44:21AM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > Now Mercurial has chosen to use in-tree '.hgtags' file to have global
> > tags transferable.  Never mind the fact that it had to treat this file
> > in special way to have it non-versioned
> 
> Oops, thought this file was versioned.  Things like
> 
>   <http://tycoon.hpl.hp.com/changeset/932:931d181e9f58/.hgtags>

.hgtags is stored as a versioned file in Mercurial.  That's one of the
problems, and it leads to no shortage of headaches.

Some of the problems are discussed here:

   http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/Tag

Specifically, to quote the Mercurial Wiki:

    The fact that tags identify changesets and are also parts of
    changesets has some potentially confusing implications:

    * The changeset that a tag refers to is always older than the
      changeset that commits the tag itself.

    * Updating a working dir to a particular tag will take that
      directory back to a point before the tag itself existed.

    * Cloning a repo to a particular tag will give you a new repo that
      does not have that tag.

In addition, Mercurial has to play interesting special case games in a
repository which has multiple heads (in git terms, "branches").  When
looking up a tag, it has to take the union of all of the .hgtags files
at the tips of each of the branches.  So if you have a large number of
heads in your Mercurial repository, tags access doesn't scale well at
all.  Mercurial is very much optimized for having a single or at best
a few heads/branches in a repository.

As I mentioned earlier this makes it much more difficult to do a
bidrectional hg/git gateway, since the two DAG's are not toplogically
equivalent, and in fact, *when* you add a tag to a particular
commit/revision can make a distinct difference to the shape of the
DAG.  If you tag right after creating the revision in question, then
there is a tag commit right after the revision.  If you commit a few
dozen changes into the repository, and *then* tag a point many commits
earlier, then the tag commit will be tacked onto the head of whatever
branch you happened to be on.

In fact, in the worst case, if you accidentally tag a revision on the
"maint" branch while you happened to be on the "devel" branch, the tag
for the commit in the "maint" branch will be attached to the "devel"
branch, and while it will work just fine for *you*, someone who only
fetches the "maint" branch might never see the tag that you placed on
the maint branch --- unless they happen to also pull the devel branch.

What fun, eh?

					- Ted

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Linus Torvalds]

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Theodore Tso wrote:
> 
> .hgtags is stored as a versioned file in Mercurial.  That's one of the
> problems, and it leads to no shortage of headaches.

I told people this was insane long long ago, and I thought the hg people 
had learnt to use local tags. They act sanely, as far as I know (ie they 
act the same way git tags do).

Of course, the problem with hg local tags is that hg apparently has no 
sane way to _propagate_ such local tag-space information from one 
repository to another. But that's purely a problem with hg itself. I don't 
know why that hasn't gotten fixed.

			Linus

Re: Git/Mercurial interoperability (and what about bzr?)

[Theodore Tso]

On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 10:51:51AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, 1 Nov 2008, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > 
> > .hgtags is stored as a versioned file in Mercurial.  That's one of the
> > problems, and it leads to no shortage of headaches.
> 
> I told people this was insane long long ago, and I thought the hg people 
> had learnt to use local tags. They act sanely, as far as I know (ie they 
> act the same way git tags do).
> 
> Of course, the problem with hg local tags is that hg apparently has no 
> sane way to _propagate_ such local tag-space information from one 
> repository to another. But that's purely a problem with hg itself. I don't 
> know why that hasn't gotten fixed.

Yeah, well, hg calls them _local_ tags, and so people consider that by
design, they aren't supposed to be propagated outside of the local
repository.  As I recall, hg doesn't support GPG signing local tags,
for the same reason.

							- Ted

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Marcin Kasperski]

>> > How many perl gurus have skipped writing
>> > stuff for hg because it's a "python-or-bust" thing?
>> 
>> How many Python people decided to write an extension for hg, because it can 
>> very nicely be accessed via Python? 
>
> And wouldn't they contribute at all, if there would be hg bindings for
> other programming languages, would they?

Are really programming languages that important? If I find a tool
which is useful and has features I need, and while using it I find
some drawback, and I am able to find how could I work on it, I can
pick up enough of the language it is written in. I am not a "guru"
if I can't. 

Main showstoppers in this area are not the programming languages, but
lack of documentation, miserable APIs, or lack of process. Or ... the
fact that the tool is so good that it does not really need extensions.



-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Marcin Kasperski   | If we are to be successful, we must still have
| http://mekk.waw.pl |    the courage to put our faith in people as
|                    |  opposed to a process. (Booch,Martin,Newkirk)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [VOTE] git versus mercurial (for DragonflyBSD)

[Isaac Jurado]

On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Marcin Kasperski
<Marcin.Kasperski@softax.com.pl> wrote:
>
> Are really programming languages that important?

Considering the success of some of them, having the worst possible
syntax and semantics,  I believe it does not matter much.

> Main showstoppers in this area are not the programming languages, but
> lack of documentation, miserable APIs, or lack of process. Or ... the
> fact that the tool is so good that it does not really need extensions.

I couldn't agree more.  Sorry for such a useless reply, but I felt some
emotion reading "common sense".

Cheers.

-- 
Isaac Jurado Peinado
http://www.krenel.net

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding"
Leonardo da Vinci