From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2008-03-26T10:55:48+09:00
Subject: Re: Why git instead of mercurial?

Avdi Grimm wrote:

> I don't really get the popularity of Git.  Most of the advocacy I've
> seen it has really been advocacy for features that all DVCSes have,
> which suggests to me that a lot of people are being introduced to DVCS
> via Git.  Or maybe it's just the "more is better" mindset:
> 
>   ls /opt/local/bin/git-* | wc -l
>   >> 142
> 
> 142 commands?  It MUST be the best!
> 
> Personally I think that if you're Linus, Git is undoubtedly the best
> tool for the job; but my own workflows don't really resemble Linus'
> much.

There's a bit of history behind this. The Linux kernel repositories used 
to be in something called Bitkeeper. However, while Bitkeeper was free 
as in beer, it was not free as in speech. IIRC Git was created in some 
kind of code sprint to replace Bitkeeper specifically for the kernel 
source tree and Linus' (and other kernel hackers') workflows.

I'm guessing there's no such thing as a perfect version control system, 
where "perfect" is defined as:

1. Open source
2. Implemented in a compiled language (preferably C/C++ or Java) for speed
3. Integrated with pragmatic practices like test/behavior driven 
development, defect tracking/ticket tracking, continuous integration, etc.