Re: Version control

Alan L Tyree <[email protected]> writes:
> On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:43:02 +1100
> Daniel Pittman <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Erik de Castro Lopo <[email protected]> writes:
>> > Alan L Tyree wrote:
>> >
>> >> Looking for some advice. I have used RCS version control for
>> >> writing LaTeX documents for some time, but am looking at the
>> >> advantages of using a distributed version control system.
>> >>
>> >> Are there any serious advantages of one over the other?

[...]

>> Anyway, Alan, did you have some specific questions?
>
> I think they have been more or less answered. In looking at the
> websites of the different ones, they all look alike to the
> non-professional.

I know the feeling.  Back when I last reviewed these professionally, as
part of a move to a DVCS from CVS in the office, I also found that my
expectations and experiences were at odds.

Some of them, like Bzr and Darcs, looked great on paper, but they didn't
stack up in the real world.  Others, like git, looked terrible but did
surprisingly well in practice...

> I will just be using it for personal use, so a lot of the features
> probably don't worry me too much. I just want something easy to use
> that helps me organise and coordinate my writing between the desk and
> several laptops.
>
> I have used RCS for some time. I do nearly all of my writing in emacs,
> so the vc mode takes care of most of the hassle as long as I stay on
> the one machine.

Well, on that basis I recommend git, together with the `git.el' or
`magit.el' wrappers — they present a PCL-CVS like status buffer,
allowing you to operate on the repository as a whole.

In large part I recommend this because git merging is the nicest I have
dealt with, and because it has enough momentum that you can find
documentation on how to do, um, whatever, as well as GUI tools that wrap
the hard parts.


> But the real problem is synching the desk and laptops. A simple synch
> program does not do it since I am always overwriting one or the other
> - rsync helps here, but still easy to screw up.
>
> That is my REAL problem - it just seemed to me that DVCS was a way to
> solve it.

I think it is.  Any of the big three, git, Mercurial or Brz, should
allow you to maintain things by pushing changes rather than overwriting
files, and then merging the results.

Oh.  One hint: if you can afford it, declare a "central" system and use
a star topology: push changes to your "central" repository from each
machine, and then fetch changes from that on the others.

This is a much gentler introduction to DVCS than pushing directly
between all the machines, although that will work fine with any of the
choices.

Regards,
        Daniel
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