[Numpy-discussion] Moving away from svn ?

[Robert Kern]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> On Jan 6, 2008 8:25 AM, Stefan van der Walt <stefan at sun.ac.za> wrote:
>> I recall something you said to David last week, regarding merges with
>> SVN: that a person never knows how to do it until *after* you've done
>> it!  We often make branches in scipy and numpy, and stand a lot to
>> gain from a distributed RCS.
>>
>> Once a person knows how to use SVN, it doesn't take much effort at all
>> to learn bzr or hg (even the commands are often the same).  The main
>> change is a mind-shift: that branches are now a lot friendlier, and
>> that they are accessable to everybody.
> 
> I understand that DVCS's do merging better.  But what I don't really
> understand is why this is an inherent advantage of DVCS.   Isnt it
> just a matter of the current crop of DVCS's implementing a better
> merge algorithm than SVN? 

No, it's not the algorithm itself. It's the information that the VCS tracks 
about files and revisions.

> The SVN guys seem to be competent, so if
> you just give them time surely they will eventually incorporate these
> better merging algorithms into SVN.  Who wouldn't want better merging?

Yes, such support is on its way in 1.5. Unfortunately, that release is most 
likely years away.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco