Ask HN: Which revision control system?

📰 Hacker News · cconstantine

Choose the right free revision control system for your team by evaluating options like Git, Mercurial, and SVN based on features like branching, merging, and large file support

intermediate Published 24 Nov 2008
Action Steps
  1. Evaluate Git's ability to import Perforce history using tools like git-p4
  2. Compare Mercurial's and SVN's support for large files and external merge tools
  3. Test Git's and Mercurial's branching and merging capabilities using external tools like KDiff3 or P4Merge
  4. Research SVN's and Git's support for multiple gigs of binary files and their performance impact
  5. Assess the Windows support and compatibility of each option, considering factors like command-line interface and GUI tools
Who Needs to Know This

Development teams looking to switch from a paid revision control system like Perforce to a free alternative can benefit from this discussion, especially those working with large binary files and multiple branches

Key Insight

💡 When switching to a free revision control system, it's crucial to evaluate the trade-offs between features like branching, merging, and large file support to ensure a smooth transition

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Switching from Perforce? Evaluate free SCM options like Git, Mercurial, and SVN based on features like branching, merging, and large file support #versioncontrol #SCM

Key Takeaways

Choose the right free revision control system for your team by evaluating options like Git, Mercurial, and SVN based on features like branching, merging, and large file support

Full Article

For the past few years we've been using Perforce at the company I work for. For a number of reasons, we've been given the OK from management to switch to a free SCM system. This is supposed to be a big opportunity to improve our process and save us money, but we're having problems finding a good replacement. Our must-have features include; ability to import our perforce history, easy/trivial branching and merging (preferably the ability to use an external merge tool), large file support, ability to pass changes from one workstation to another without affecting everyone, and ability to work with multiple gigs of binary files (most are roughly 500k, some are 100+megs). The binary files are mostly build artifacts, but for a large number of very good reasons we can't expect developers to generate them. Each developer having their own branch would be nice, but isn't critical. Our products only run and compile on Windows, so decent windows support would be nice. We aren't exactly an MS house
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