[Numpy-discussion] DVCS at PyCon

[Stéfan van der Walt]

Hi all,

DVCS discussions are notoriously unproductive, aren't they :)

The two systems under discussion, git and hg, are both *almost* what
we want, which means we have to make a choice and compromise.


Here are some of the pros and cons I've picked up, and I'm sure you
can add more:

Git has well-integrated in-place branches, allows you to easily do
"patch carving" (i.e. manipulation of patches to get them Just Right
(TM)) and is very fast.  Mercurial has a more intuitive interface /
less confusing error messages in places, has a very good http serving
protocol, is written in and used by Python.  Bzr wasn't included in
the discussion, but its patience diff algorithm and good user
interface is worth mentioning.


We have to decide which of these attributes are more important to the
developers and users of NumPy and SciPy, and then go with that system.

Alternatively, we can simply ignore the arguments and pick one
randomly.  Having any DVCS in place would improve the situation and,
besides, it's easy to switch to another system later if we make an
enormous error in judgement.

Regards
Stéfan