Subversion 1.8 Released But Will You Still Use Git? 378
darthcamaro writes "Remember back in the day when we all used CVS? Then we moved to SVN (subversion) but in the last three yrs or so everyone and their brother seems to have moved to Git, right? Well truth is Subversion is still going strong and just released version 1.8. While Git is still faster for some things, Greg Stein, the former chair of the Apache Software Foundation, figures SVN is better than Git at lots of things. From the article: '"With Subversion, you can have a 1T repository and check out just a small portion of it, The developers don't need full copies," Stein explained. "Git shops typically have many, smaller repositories, while svn shops typically have a single repository, which eases administration, backup, etc."'"
Major new features of 1.8 include switching to a new metadata storage engine by default instead of using Berkeley DB, first-class renames (instead of the CVS-era holdover of deleting and recreating with a new name) which will make merges involving renamed files saner, and a slightly simplified branch merging interface.
Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Insightful)
For some development projects / communities, where everyone is independent and rarely connected to a central point, the distributed VCS make more sense. The downside is that you have to rely on developers to push their changes to some "master". On the other hand, it means they can work offline / disconnected.
For the less technical users, centralized VCS like SVN makes more sense. As long as you can get them to commit the changes, you're ensured that those changes are now on a server/machine that is getting backed up and taken care of.
Re:github (Score:3, Insightful)
Really?!
Re:Different strokes for different folks (Score:1, Insightful)
Your post is filled with nonsense. I've always used a central repo with git. That repo and all of it's backups could turn into a smoking crater, and we'd still be ok. With SVN, you better hope your backups are solid, because you're borked if you lose them.
It's GIT for OSS, SVN for Enterprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
-SVN has much better visual tools and is simpler to operate
-SVN has a simpler merge policies which are friendlier when there isn't a central person pulling the changes.
-SVN is very friendly for projects with a lot of binary objects (ie videogames)
-SVN allows different people to work on different directories individually, GIT doesn't.
-SVN has fine grained permissions, access and authentication controls, very useful when parts of your project (ie, APIs) are under NDA or you don't want them to leak.
They are different systems with different scenarios in mind, comparing them or claiming that GIT is killing SVN is just ignorance.
Re:It's GIT for OSS, SVN for Enterprise. (Score:0, Insightful)
Are you middle management by any chance? You seem to have no idea what you're talking about.
Git is auto-backup (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SVN sucks on windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to point to specific bugs? We've been using SVN for years and never seen these problems.
Moreover, since SVN is client-server, why would a buggy client cause datacorruption in the database? Are you implying there are major bugs in the svn server?
without backup, your claims are just FUD...
Re:Won't use SVN. (Score:5, Insightful)
All SCMs suck, some more than others. I liked CVS despite all its drawbacks. I can't help but dislike SVN despite all its upsides, notably its unbearably smug attitude, and especially its "documentation" drives me up the wall. Git, well, seems to be a reasonably solid bit of software and comes with somewhat usable manpages, despite its treacherous heritage. So we'll use that, reluctantly.
There are a few more alternatives I'd look at before looking at SVN again, in fact. And no apologies for not being sorry about it.
I'll bite. What's smug about svn? The developers make a version control system that they think is good, but they don't pretend it's The One True VCS. The users on forums, and Mercurial devs/users all likewise. By contrast Git fans, from Linus on down, act like it's the One True VCS and treat anyone who doesn't see the light as only worthy of contempt. I'm considering moving to Git or Mercurial, but I swear it'll be Mercurial just to get away from that friggin' attitude.
Documentation is also one of the strong points of SVN. The online book [red-bean.com] is fantastic.
Re:GIT sucks on windows (Score:2, Insightful)
Git is full of appalling bad usability decisions. Like requiring git commit -a, which for Mercurial would just be hg commit as a sane person would expect. Git fans spout a bunch of drivel about "staging area" to justify it, but it can't be justified. Warts like this are strictly a geek endurance test, to learn where your pain threshold is. If it is sufficiently high then you are cut out to be a Git nerd forever.
Mind you, Git is wonderful compared to Subversion which just can't do the things you need to do.
Re:But can SVN merge a branch yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
The natural way to work is, if a bug is found in the release, fix it in the release branch and then merge that one change back into trunk.
I hate this version of work......I have some coworkers who always do it. They occasionally forget to merge something back into head, which means they have to revisit the same problem in a few months. If you're going to miss a merge, it's better to miss the merge back into the branch, rather than into head; because as long as it's merged into head, it'll be fixed eventually.
Re:GIT sucks on windows (Score:2, Insightful)
Mind you, Git is wonderful compared to Subversion which just can't do the things you need to do.
And SVN can do stuff that Git can't. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. (storing empty directory structures is one example of something Git cannot do).