[Numpy-discussion] DVCS at PyCon

[Eric Firing]

Ondrej Certik wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:45 PM, David Cournapeau
> <david at ar.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp> wrote:
>> Ondrej Certik wrote:
>>> It is maybe easier to learn how to work with different clones, but
>>> once you start working with lots of patches and you need to reclone
>>> all the time, then it's the wrong approach to work, as it takes lots
>>> of time to copy the whole repository on the disk.

This is simply wrong.  Mercurial uses hard links for cloning a repo that 
is on the same disk, so it is faster and much more space-efficient than 
copying the files. But if you do want named branches in a given repo, 
you can have that also with hg.  Granted, it has not always been part of 
hg, but it is now.  Same with rebasing and transplanting.

Now, I know that your (speaking to Ondrej) project switched from hg to 
git, and you have provided some useful insight as to why.  I also 
understand that there are substantive differences between the two, with 
advantages and disadvantages. But I don't think it follows that numpy 
(or matplotlib, eventually, I hope) necessarily should move to git 
if/when a move to a DVCS is decided upon.  It is possible that hg might 
be a better fit--a better compromise--for present *and* *potential* 
*future* contributors to numpy, scipy, and matplotlib.

>> Yes, *I* know how to use git, and I agree with you, I vastly prefer git
>> branch handling to bzr branch handling. *I* find working with GUI for
>> VCS a real PITA. But I am not the only numpy developer, that's why the
>> feedback from people like Josef with a totally different workflow than
>> me is valuable - much more than people like us who are unix geeks :)
> 

Speaking to David: is git branch handling vastly preferable to both of 
the branch styles available in hg?

Speaking to Josef: does tortoise-hg provide a satisfactory windows gui, 
from your standpoint?

Eric

> Yes, definitely.
> 
> Ondrej
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