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Practical Reasons To Choose Git Or Subversion?

Posted by kdawson on from the while-we're-at-it-do-you-like-vi-or-emacs dept.

markmcb writes "I develop Rails applications and recently followed my lemming herd and made the switch to Git after learning some of the practical advantages Git offers over Subversion. As I'm sure there are many die-hard Subversion fans in the Slashdot audience, I'm curious what your key reasons are for sticking with Subversion. If possible, I'd like reasons that apply to 'most of the time' as opposed to arguments based on obscure features that may get used only a few times ever."

10 of 667 comments (clear)

  1. Windows. by scott_karana · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Git is an excellent piece of software, but Windows performance is not so great. Git is too UNIX centric to be fast on Windows in the near future.

    Other distributed SCMs often are interpreted and just as slow as git (on any platform), so this might not be a concern for me.

    1. Re:Windows. by Cyberax · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've migrated my projects to Mercurial and is actually FASTER than Subversion on Windows and Linux for commit/update/status/blame.

      Mercurial is slower than GIT on Linux, but I just don't care.

    2. Re:Windows. by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Mercurial is slower than GIT on Linux

      Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, usually about a tie in my experience. Measurements on kernel tree import and initial commit showed roughly a tie.

      But Mercurial is _way_ more obvious and pleasant to use than Git. I use both, but any time I have the option I choose Mercurial.

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  2. IDE Integration by FortKnox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like the bi-line suggests... Unless you are coding in something like vi or emacs, I don't use the command line for my source control. IDE Integration means a lot... most of the items that git 'claims' to be better on is something IDE plugins fix. So the maturity of the plugin and the comfort with using it is a big thing for me. As such, I'm usually using CVS or Subversion.

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    1. Re:IDE Integration by dubl-u · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Try merging a reasonably-sized branch with subversion (and you'll fail and cry and ask why oh why you didnt use git).

      Simpler solution: stop merging reasonably-sized branches.

      I know that's not reasonable for every situation, but about 90% of the time I see people doing lots of branching and merging, it's a response to screwed-up organizations or dysfunctional personal relationships. I saw one team move to git from subversion because, at the root, a couple of developers were arrogant assholes and their manager was a chinless milquetoast who let them get away with it.

      That's not to say git isn't awesome for certain situations, mind you. But branching and merging adds a fair bit of overhead, and anything that increases a project's overhead should be your last resort, not your first.

    2. Re:IDE Integration by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Looks like the reason he likes Git is because he's used to thinking of the other people he develops with as idiots, and it makes it easy for him to deal with them.

      The talking down at you attitude is supporting evidence....

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  3. What about Git vs. Bazaar? by Bromskloss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They are both of the "distributed" kind.

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  4. not 1:1 by sohp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The most effective use of GIT happens when the team changes its mindset away from the central repository with multiple developers checking into it to a true peer-to-peer development team. I wouldn't switch away from svn until the organization I was with was prepared to "think different" and make that transition. Using GIT like a fancy svn just makes it like a complicated svn, not a better way of doing version control.

  5. Go with Bazaar by bbn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I found the Bazaar system to be superior to all other version control systems I have tried, including subversion and GIT.

    http://bazaar-vcs.org/

    Why? It is fast, it has tools integration and it can be used in much the same way as subversion/CVS. It is much easier to learn and just as powerful as something like GIT.

    There might be reasons to use GIT for extreme projects like the Linux kernel, but I believe Bazaar will do just fine for all reasonably sized projects.

  6. Does it matter? by Jeff+Hornby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The truth is that despite the amount of invective on the subject, the choice of source control tools is not going to have any measurable impact on your project. Hell, most projects could easily run without a problem on a non-buggy version of MS-SourceSafe (if such an animal existed).

    The biggest cost you're going to have with your source control package is the initial setup. The biggest benefit you're going to get from your source control package is going to be minimizing that cost. Choose any of the modern source control packages and just get on with what you're being paid to do: write code.

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