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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."

5 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 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.

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
  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.

    --
    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
    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.

  3. 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.