Proposals/feedback for a distributed version control system for cutecash?

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de> writes:

> Ideally, I'd like to find a hosting location with distributed VCS
> hosting which automatically imports and tracks the gnucash/trunk SVN
> branch, though.  However, the only hosting place that supports this
> seems to be launchpad.net - and their VCS is bazaar. (Hosting sites
> for git such as github.com at most import a one-shot import from SVN,
> but no automatic continuous tracking.)

I'd be willing to set up an experiment that automatically pushed out
updates off code.gnucash.org.

> Even though I have got accustomed to git, I would have no problem with 
> switching to bazaar BUT when quickly giving this a try, I wasn't too happy 
> with some of its features.
>
> Notably, I've grown accustomed to the "gitk" graphical overview of the
> recent branch history. Browsing through all 18000 commits is done by
> key presses and the GUI reacts instantly, showing the summary and full
> diff of any commit in a reaction time that seems non-measurable. Even
> on a computer with a slow hard disk. In contrast to this, "bzr qgit"
> seems to take longer by a factor of 10 when loading the window and
> also when browsing through the commits - which is considerably less
> fun than with "gitk". Did other people experience this differently?
>
> Also, in git there is "git gui" which has the extremely cool feature of 
> staging (committing) only selected hunks of the current working copy diff. 
> When viewing the diff of the current working copy against the latest HEAD, I 
> can right-click on the single hunks that I'd like to commit, and leave the 
> rest of the file excluded from the new commit. Does bazaar have a GUI with a 
> similiar feature?
>
> What would other devs around here choose as distributed VCS for a new
> project, and why? Do you know of any hosting sites with that VCS that
> offers continuous tracking of the original SVN branch?

I must admit that the only "distributed" VCS I've used is SVK, which is
based around SVN.  It's... okay.  If I were to move to something else
right now I think I'd move to git.

I think it's reasonable to think about migrating from SVN to git, but I
would want us going in with eyes wide open:

1) WHY are we changing from SVN to a distributed VCS?
2) What features does the distributed VCS have that SVN does not (based
   on how we use SVN)?
3) Is there a viewer we could use (in lieu of trac)?

I certainly think it would be very reasonable to supply our own
read-only git repo.

> Regards,
>
> Christian

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available