Re: PROPOSAL: Move to git, now that bzr is no longer a req.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:28:04 -0500
> From: "Eric S. Raymond" <address@hidden>
> Cc: Karl Fogel <address@hidden>, address@hidden
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden>:
> > I love bzr and hate git.  I hope Emacs will not switch from bzr in my
> > lifetime, not to git anyway.
> 
> I can understand hating git; the UI is pretty nasty, and there is at least
> a colorable argument that containerlessness is a bug.  I use git in spite 
> of its defects, not because I don't know they're there.

I use git, too.  That's why I hate it, not because I've read about it
in some blog.

> I don't understand loving bzr; my experiences with it have been unpleasant. 
> I would be interested to hear your apologia for it.  

I don't know where to begin.  In a nutshell, it is simple to use, yet
powerful enough to give me several important workflows, and an easy
way to fix any mistakes I happen to make (although lately there are
almost none).  It works on Unix and on Windows alike, and does both
seamlessly.  The UI is orders of magnitude simpler and easier to grasp
that that of git.  The documentation, while it can use some serious
improvement, is nevertheless orders of magnitude more clear than git's
man pages, which seem to have been written by some math professor who
can produce rigorous formal papers, but doesn't have the slightest
idea how to write useful and efficient user documentation.

And of course, everything is similar but subtly different from bzr, to
the point that I need to consult my notes on every step, for fear of
making a mistake.  The switch from CVS to bzr was very simple by
comparison, even though the d in dVCS did require some mind shift.

> Mind you, I think opposing git adoption is like trying to stop the tide
> from coming in, at this point (and have my own mixed feelings about that).

You probably don't know me well enough, if you are surprised by my
trying to stop the tide.