Re: [tlug] Open-source repository question

[John Fremlin <john@example.com>]

Edward Middleton wrote:
> That wasn't what I said, and it wasn't my point.  Git is better then
> darcs because more people know git then darcs. 

No.

In my opinion, the reason git achieved so much adoption despite its 
insistence that you learn the concepts behind it before you meddle with 
the user interface is because of its good design.

The reason more people use git is because it's better, it's not better 
because more people use it.

[...]
> soon.  Git even has a few defectors among the Haskell crowd.  If you are
> interested in selling a better DVCS then use darcs, 

Why do you think darcs is superior. Could you describe any reasons?

I would say that the architecture of git is more advanced. Three 
examples where it is more advanced: compressed database format, the 
ability to track function moves across files (not sure if darcs has 
this?), very lightweight branches and stashing.

Check out git rebase --interactive

Darcs came out with some talk about how it has a "theory of patches". 
Unfortunately, the original darcs suffered issues where the repository 
would become massive confused (!) -- which apparently are only partially 
fixed in darcs2. This so-called theory (apparently invented by a 
physicist so inherently suspect ;-) is in its application impractical 
(i.e. the exponential blowup on conflicts). Secondly, the implementation 
was massively screwed up (my impression and if you have evidence to the 
contrary I would be pleased to hear it).

http://wiki.darcs.net/ConflictsFAQDarcs1#what-the-big-conflicts-bug

Check out this message for a list of the problems with the old version

http://www.mail-archive.com/darcs-users@example.com/msg03440.html


The approach in darcs2 is extraordinary. They seem to keep adding code 
to recover from corrupted indexes and corrupted repositories. This is 
IMNSHO an extremely dangerous approach. Instead of papering over the 
problems (and overemphasizing the few rare cases where the repository 
was corrupted by external tools -- there is no way to fix this in 
general so don't bother), they should carefully make sure that their 
repository (database) cannot get into a confused state by fixing the 
bugs in their design which make this possible. This is just my 
impression from their release notes and I would be very happy to be 
corrected.

I use both darcs and git. I haven't had any problems with either, but my 
impression is that git has a better theory of patches than darcs, a 
better database structure and a better design in general.