From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Prefer Mercurial instead of git Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 18:34:58 +0000 Message-ID: <20140104183458.GA3124@acm.acm> References: <874n5k12ft.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <1388841220.11337.21.camel@Iris> <87bnzrzuzp.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <1388846290.11337.24.camel@Iris> <877gafzset.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <1388849055.11337.26.camel@Iris> <87fvp3snak.fsf@engster.org> <1388855790.11337.29.camel@Iris> <87bnzrslfh.fsf@engster.org> <1388857210.11337.30.camel@Iris> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1388860695 19045 80.91.229.3 (4 Jan 2014 18:38:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 18:38:15 +0000 (UTC) Cc: David Kastrup , David Engster , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Jordi =?iso-8859-1?Q?Guti=E9rrez?= Hermoso Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jan 04 19:38:21 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VzW71-0007L8-RP for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Jan 2014 19:38:20 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55386 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VzW71-0005ib-GA for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 04 Jan 2014 13:38:19 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37979) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VzW6r-0005iJ-UR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jan 2014 13:38:17 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VzW6k-0002bD-KU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jan 2014 13:38:09 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:40161 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VzW6k-0002aD-9E for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 04 Jan 2014 13:38:02 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 26346 invoked by uid 3782); 4 Jan 2014 18:38:00 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p5492CC40.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.146.204.64]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Sat, 04 Jan 2014 19:37:59 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 3213 invoked by uid 1000); 4 Jan 2014 18:34:58 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1388857210.11337.30.camel@Iris> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 8.x X-Received-From: 193.149.48.1 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:167306 Archived-At: On Sat, Jan 04, 2014 at 12:40:10PM -0500, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote: > On Sat, 2014-01-04 at 18:31 +0100, David Engster wrote: > > Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso writes: > > > bzr has its merits, and I applaud the efforts to give it a nice UI > > > efforts and its documentation is quite good, but it's obviously not > > > fit for Emacs. If it were, we wouldn't be having this discussion in > > > the first place. > > You keep repeating this, and it is still wrong. We do the switch > > because Bazaar is dead. > bzr dying is a consequence of its technical demerits. If it were good > code, it would survive even in the face of git's popularity, just as > hg has survived and is doing quite well. I think bzr was somewhat lacking in good documentation and simplicity. I found it quirky to use, and never got to like it, though clearly some people do like it a lot. git has prospered, I think, because it is used by Linux (just like C did because it was used by Unix). > bzr didn't die merely because of Canonical's involvement. If people > liked it enough, they would have forked it, maintained it themselves. > It's free software. It can't be "effectively privatised", like someone > else said. There seems to have been something peculiar about bzr that it died so suddenly. Maybe maintaining the code had become drudgery. Normally, I'd expect a project like that to peter out over many years rather than be abandoned abruptly like bzr was. > Darcs has failed to be popular because it was slow and buggy (and > perhaps because Haskell is much more niche and can't attract enough > developers, but I'm not so sure about this). Darcs is still alive though, isn't it? It would be good if Haskell became less niche, I think. > But hg has great architecture, is built by a kernel hacker just like > git is, it's just as fast and somtimes faster than git, and it has a > common enough programming language that it has no trouble attracting > contributors. Like I said, mpm's devotion to keeping hg free and > GNU-friendly is also a very good point in favour. I agree with you about Mercurial. It is vastly superior to git in terms of documentation and simplicity; it has a single man page written in a lively compelling style and must surely approach closely the elusive goal of "as simple as possible but not simpler". I selected hg for CC Mode a couple of years ago, and don't regret the decision. The impression I have of git (though I haven't used it) is that it is the C++ of DVCSs - loaded up with feature after feature, many of marginal utility. I'd love to be mistaken on this point. I do wonder if new contributers to projects are ever discouraged by the difficulty of learning git - it must be an order of magnitude more difficult to learn to use effectively than CVS or Mercurial. I would support changing to Mercurial (which I believe has a long life ahead of it), but accept the sheer weight of numbers of those who like or already use git makes this most unlikely. > - Jordi G. H. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).