Version Control Software

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 9:27 AM, cutems93 <ms2597 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> I am looking for an appropriate version control software for python development, and need professionals' help to make a good decision. Currently I am considering four software: git, SVN, CVS, and Mercurial. Of course, I already did some research on different characteristics of version software, but I concluded that listening to personal experiences and opinions from the professionals will help me a lot. What version control software do you like the most and why? What is the difference between git and Mercurial? Also, if anyone can help me by doing google-chat or skype, please let me know.

Don't touch CVS unless you absolutely have to. SVN is also distinctly
old now. The three most popular modern source control systems are git,
hg, and bzr (Bazaar). Of the three, I would remove Bazaar from
consideration unless you're posting to a Canonical repository;
Mercurial and git are superior, in my experience.

Between those two (hg and git), though, it's really hard to call. I'm
personally familiar with git, and it serves me well; others have the
same experience with hg. Either will do you fine. They have some
different features, eg git detects file moves after the event while hg
prefers to be told about them up-front, but for normal daily tasks,
either is fine. Pick based on which one other people near you are
familiar with, so that you can get help when things go wrong - for
instance, I would be utterly useless when it comes to hg (I can't even
make patch files, which I can do just fine with git).

But above all, do use source control. The difference between that and
not is way WAY more than the difference between one system and another
:)

ChrisA