Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bitkeeper News Redux

Posted by timothy on from the salt-lake-city-rocks dept.

gosand writes "Newsforge is running Part 1 of a two-part interview with Bitkeeper author Larry McVoy. You may recall that there was quite an uproar in the community over Linus choosing to use a proprietary source management tool. Although there are no hard numbers, the estimates are that Linus has been 10x more productive with BK."

16 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Pretty impressive productivity increase by mindless4210 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What we did to arrive at that number was to simply measure the amount of change over the two-year period in BitKeeper and contrast that with the two-year period before BitKeeper. It worked out to about 2.5x more change.

    I'm no mathematician but I'd say that's a decent way of estimating their productivity increase. But does BitKeeper actually help that much? Anyone who has every used it in a production environment please comment.

    Linus is processing around 50 patches a day, 365 days a year.

    That's a pretty incredible number. If that's the truth, then I'm very impressed.

    --
    Wireless News www.DailyWireless
  2. Productivity by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although there are no hard numbers, the estimates are that Linus has been 10x more productive with BK.

    And I'm 1000x more productive with CVS!

    Instead of pulling numbers out of the air, just say the guy likes the tool and performs better with it. Sheesh.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  3. I don't see by Power+Everywhere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why there was an uproar over this. Who cares if it's Free or not? It gets the job done better, and in the end that's what counts. The flame wars all over LKML and other places were just wastes of time.

    --

    BLING BLING. Meet the architecture that's changing everything.

    1. Re:I don't see by rabtech · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The key difference is that if you duplicate MS Access with VS, you are using ADO which contains the Microsoft JET engine (among other drivers); in effect, you are using the access engine to write a product that competes with access.

      In the BK instance, you are NOT using BK as the basis to develop a competing source control product.

      The BK license (at least regarding that provision) is not enforceable and has all the weight of feather to back it up.

      --
      Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
  4. Lesson to be learned by WordODD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The lesson to be learned here is very simple...
    Open source and propriety software can and should be used hand in hand. The best tool for the job etc. etc. The OSS scene suffers from the idea they are members of some religion and by using anything other then Open Source they are committing a crime against the movement.

    --
    Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
    1. Re:Lesson to be learned by cduffy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, the BitKeeper license is evil. Go read it sometime -- it prevents folks from working on competing systems. This means that folks working on Free revision control (like me!) are substantially hampered if we want to also do some work on the Linux kernel.

      Larry has also been known to change license terms specifically to force a particular user to upgrade to a more expensive license -- I was an employee at a Linux startup (MontaVista Software) when it happened to us. He's been known to spread FUD about Arch in public, and is otherwise not a very nice person to have as a competitor *or* a supplier.

      Particularly given that Free alternatives to BitKeeper with history-sensitive merging and distributed repository support (the two features that make BitKeeper so powerful) are available, using BitKeeper is arguably much more destructive than it is useful.

  5. Although there are no hard numbers by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm no mathematician but I'd say that's a decent way of estimating their productivity increase.

    Actually, it's meaningless without looking at other factors. Even the concept of more change is so open ended it tells us nothing. As Linux gains users it will certainly increase in these numbers, there is no strong indication that bitkeeper is a factor at all, or how much of a factor it is.

    Although there are no hard numbers, the estimates are that Linus has been 10x more productive with BK.

    Following the statement that there are no hard numbers , the ten percent figure seems more like a number pulled out of thin air and selected to not be large enough to be called outrageous but big enough to encourage people to make a change. That's not to say we are not talking about a good tool here (I have no opnion on that issue), but this is much more hype than a valid study.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:Although there are no hard numbers by Izago909 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess it all boils down to what Linus thinks. If he feel's it's better, and helpes increase his production, then that's all that matters. Something as complex as this will prove very difficult to make hard numbers with because of the large number of uncontrolable variables.

  6. Emphasis on 2x, NOT 10x by skink1100 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Folks -- the 10x productivity number mentioned in the article was only an anecdotal claim; Larry McVoy claimed 2x. And the latter number is backed up by some pretty fair reasoning. I RTFA and didn't get the impression anyone was pulling numbers out of their ass.

    S

  7. Since when did Linus... by goldspider · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...need to justify himself to the Slashdot crowd?

    Unlike a lot of you, Linus isn't a Linux zealot. He's said on more than one occasion that Linux/OSS is about making the right tool for the job when one doesn't already exist. It has nothing to do with shoving an ideology down everyone's throat.

    In this case, Linus decided that Bitkeeper was the best tool for the job, and it is very telling that people are judging him for not complying with an almost religious ideology that he doesn't even subscribe to.

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  8. Success due to Bitkeeper? by amightywind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There has been a noticable improvement in the 2.5-2.6 cycle compared to 2.3-2.4. Linus and the team has done a super job. Bitkeeper gets a lot of credit for it. I can't help but wonder if similar results would not have been achieved with CVS, Subversion, or arch. Are there any features Bitkeeper has that the free alternatives do not?

    The GCC project is of comparable complexity to Linux. They use CVS with some success, don't they?

    --
    an ill wind that blows no good
    1. Re:Success due to Bitkeeper? by HuguesT · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This reminds me of the silly software comparison charts that one finds in PC magazines and of some not-very-honest adverts in the same mags. The journalist lists a number of feature each piece of software has and puts a bright green tick in the right column where the feature is implemented and a nasty red cross where it's not. At a glance one is able to see which is the better piece of software. Not.

      Yes CVS lacks lots of features that may be important in some software projects, on the other hand it is pretty much bug free, has seen a huge amount of usage, is very simple to use (it takes me all of 5 minutes to get a new user up to speed with it), has no silly file locking, has a simple text-based repository which is in fact very robust.

      I never tire of saying that I've been using CVS for nigh on 12 years now, that I've also used SCCS, raw RCS, and Perforce, which everyone swears by.

      By and large CVS is the simplest to use and does get the job done. Whereas I couldn't get any of my users to use RCS and that a lot of them don't like Perforce because of the individual file locking feature. I have had exactly zero problem with CVS, and this is an experience that is reflected pretty much around the globe.

      Regarding the issues that SourceForge has, I'm not sure it would be helped by switching to another source control system. Sourceforge doesn't appear keen to try, they must have good reasons for it.

      Now for some things you are right, CVS is not the right tool. We are talking massive complicated and distributed systems like the Linux kernel. In this instance we are talking about sophisticated users and developers who know the value of using the right tool for the right job, even if the tool is more complicated at first. Neither BK nor Arch and not even Subversion are as simple as CVS at first.

      CVS is a decent answer to a very important problem. It doesn't have to go, developers need to be aware of the alternatives when they reach the limits of what CVS can do.

  9. Yes 2.5x better than nothing by norwoodites · · Score: 4, Insightful

    IIRC he was not using any SCM at all so yes using one in gneral will help. CVS for me was able to get my team about 10x better (but then again I did most of the work anyways and this was for class).
    But anything not using a SCM will be helped by using one.

  10. Testing Expertise by barryfandango · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "When we are testing out a new release we can put it on bkbits.net and we know in seconds if we have broken something important; people use old versions of BK to talk to bkbits.net every few seconds."

    I'm sure they're experts in code management, but their testing procedures could use some work.

    --
    In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
  11. Re:10x... riiiight... by Malor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember that this number is about perception. Linus himself says he's more than twice as productive. The other developers say he's 10x as productive.

    But what's their measurement? The number of patches from them he accepts. For years, Linux development was badly hamstrung by the fact that Linus couldn't work fast enough. The patch submission process, was, in essence, emailing him over and over and over, hammering away at the poor guy, trying to get your patch noticed. The developer frustration with this process was EXTREME. The single most common thing I heard about kernel development was "Linus doesn't scale". BK has changed that completely.

    It seems entirely possible to me that Linus is now 10x better at processing and merging patches. But that's not all he does.... a 10x improvement in patch management could easily translate to a 2x overall productivity increase. Measurements of code changes show about a 2.5x overall improvement, which is pretty close to Linus' own guess.

    In other words, these numbers aren't incompatible... productivity is a hard thing to measure, and there are a lot of angles from which you can look at it.

    If the claim of 50 patches a day, 365 days a year are true... that's 18,250 patches a year. The fact that he can do that and get coding done TOO should be an object of reverence and awe.

    Since BK was designed with Linus in mind, it probably won't affect other programmers as dramatically as it did him. Not all coders will think like he does, and his distributed coding needs are very specialized. It's not going to be applicable to all environments, but it's pretty obvious that at least in some cases, it is an enormous win and completely worth what they're charging for it.

  12. Linus - Practical by MisterFancypants · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The fact that Linus tends to choose pragmatism over idealism is why the Linux kernel is important and GNU hurd is completely still-born.

    Idealism is nice and all but it doesn't get shit done.