[Monotone-devel] Re: Fwd: VCS comparison table

[Graydon Hoare]

Jon Smirl wrote:
> There is a large discussion happening on the git mailing list
> comparing the internals of various SCMs. Monotone developers might
> find it interesting.
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/28881/focus=28881

Oh dear, what a tiring thread!

Each of the tools that has emerged in the past 5 or 6 years has been 
feeling its way blindly along the same highly constrained product 
landscape with many peaks and valleys in simplicity, performance, 
reliability and convenience. Each tool's proponents wish to claim the 
global maximum for their champion.

I no longer believe that there is any global maximum: there are many 
mutually incompatible choices you make along the road, and different 
users value the outcomes differently. Some people find SHA1 values 
comfortingly precise; others find some form of linear number or pet-name 
comfortingly meaningful. Some people require cross-directory rename 
operations to merge correctly; others require files to be splittable and 
combinable. Some people like the robustness and simplicity of 
disconnected repository replicas; others believe that disk space and 
network traffic is too expensive to spend on such things.

The tools are still evolving, though, and continue to steal all each 
other's good ideas, when possible. When one finds a new feature that 
*can* be copied to another (without violating a contradictory early 
assumption), typically the feature *is* copied.

-graydon