Re: On the popularity of git [Was: Git question: when using branches, how does git treat working files when changing branches?]

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

> Hello, David.
>
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 02:21:47PM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> At some point of time you should develop a theory as to why Git actually
>> managed to become the most popular version control system in spite of
>> the meaning of its commands not being obvious as soon as you can wave
>> around an English language certificate.
>
> I've been wondering about git's popularity for some long time.  That
> git's complexity is not necessary in a powerful VCS is demonstrated by
> the counterexamples of hg and (to a lesser extent) bzr.

Emacs finally gave up on Bzr.  XEmacs does use Hg but Stephen does not
make it sound like the project would be necessarily taking the same
choices given today's experience.

> git had (and has) Linux behind it, thus giving a lot of hackers being
> forced to learn git early on.  This surely gave git a huge advantage
> in numbers at the start of the competition.

I think you severely overestimate the number of Linux kernel hackers and
their fanout to other projects.

> But I think the real reason is that there are lots of hackers around,
> possibly mainly the younger ones, who revel in their mastery of
> complexity rather than attempting to sidestep and avoid it.

Thanks for the compliment, but I don't think it's borne out by reality.
Sites like GitHub have not become popular because they make it hard or
incomprehensible to get work done.

-- 
David Kastrup