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Fossil Versus Git

fossil-scm.org

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Re: Fossil Versus Git

#51

Post by jrockway »

hasenj wrote: post #50
jrockway wrote: post #41

Git features the "rebase" command which can be used to change the sequence of check-ins in the repository. Rebase can be used to "clean up" a complex sequence of check-ins to make their intent easier for others to understand. From another point of view, rebase can be used to "rewrite history" - to do what Winston Smith did for a living in Orwell's novel 1984. This is FUD. Git never erases history; it merely moves mut…

re: digression I don't use rebase and I can't say that I like it, but that doesn't make me hate git. I commit all my crappy and stupid intermediate code (for my personal projects).

Do you ever use the change history for anything?

When you keep the change history clean, it's a lot easier to answer questions like "why did I do that?", and it's a lot easier to explore topic branches and back out bad design ideas.

If the history is messy, removing bad changes is about as difficult as opening up every file and removing the changes you don't want. In other words -- error prone.

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#52

Post by philwelch »

mnutt wrote: post #37
zem wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"github in a box" is a superb tagline, though. that was my favourite bit in that article.

Given a pile of cash, you can actually buy "github in a box": http://fi.github.com/ I believe it's JRuby-based.

It is JRuby-based, and they only give you a compiled binary, and it's weeks to months behind the public GitHub site. Aside from those issues, it's really quite nice.

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#53

Post by philwelch »

andos wrote: post #34
philwelch wrote: post #11

"Git provides file versioning services only, whereas Fossil adds an integrated wiki, ticketing & bug tracking, embedded documentation, and News/Blog features. These additional capabilities are available for Git as 3rd-party user-installed add-ons, but with Fossil they are integrated into the design." Am I the only one who's actively suspicious about this kind of thing? With Git, I can use whatever wiki, ticketing, do…

Have you ever tried to set up a Gitorious box? Not that it's difficult (it is) but it is a complete waste of people's time. If I want to fiddle with every aspect of my development tools, maybe I'm not Fossil's target. Next time I need to set a small coding project (I attend a few OSS hackfests every year), I'll definitely consider Fossil instead of git.

Have you ever tried to set up a Gitorious box?

No, I just use GitHub. Is there a hosted Fossil service that's as easy to use?

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#54

Post by swaits »

pyninja wrote: post #21

This does not make me interested in Fossil.

That's too bad. Though I mostly use mercurial, when it's appropriate and I get to choose, I've played with fossil and it is quite a nice package. Super easy to setup, fully featured, easy to use, and does what I want. Before you shitcan the whole idea, why not play with it for a few minutes?

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#55

Post by andos »

philwelch wrote: post #53
andos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to set up a Gitorious box? Not that it's difficult (it is) but it is a complete waste of people's time. If I want to fiddle with every aspect of my development tools, maybe I'm not Fossil's target. Next time I need to set a small coding project (I attend a few OSS hackfests every year), I'll definitely consider Fossil instead of git.

Have you ever tried to set up a Gitorious box? No, I just use GitHub. Is there a hosted Fossil service that's as easy to use?

When the project allows me to go hosted, then the problem is already solved. Thrice. When it does not, but I still need versioning, a wiki and some issue tracking and I don't feel like sporting my masochist hat, good news for me: there's now a tool that does it all and it's a single binary that needs no setting up.

And I don't know if there's any hosted Fossil service around, easy to use or otherwise.

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#56

Post by cageface »

Fossil would have to be much better than Git for me to take a serious look. I'm not interested in micro-optimizing every single piece of my toolkit. Git is the DVCS with all the momentum and mindshare and it does what I need it to do. I have bigger fish to fry.

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#57

Post by sunsu »

shadowsun7 wrote: post #46
philwelch wrote: post #11

"Git provides file versioning services only, whereas Fossil adds an integrated wiki, ticketing & bug tracking, embedded documentation, and News/Blog features. These additional capabilities are available for Git as 3rd-party user-installed add-ons, but with Fossil they are integrated into the design." Am I the only one who's actively suspicious about this kind of thing? With Git, I can use whatever wiki, ticketing, do…

I would argue that Github has many if not all of those features. Wiki - check Ticketing & Bug Tracking - Github has 'issues' Embedded documentation - include a README file in your repo, and Github immediately shows that under your project News/Blog features - Github has pages, and automatically generates RSS feeds for your commits. I'd argue that Github does all these things better than Fossil (or I) can ever do - th…

But if I want private repositories at github I have to pay!

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#58

Post by philwelch »

sunsu wrote: post #57
shadowsun7 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that Github has many if not all of those features. Wiki - check Ticketing & Bug Tracking - Github has 'issues' Embedded documentation - include a README file in your repo, and Github immediately shows that under your project News/Blog features - Github has pages, and automatically generates RSS feeds for your commits. I'd argue that Github does all these things better than Fossil (or I) can ever do - th…

But if I want private repositories at github I have to pay!

And if you want Fossil hosted on a web-accessible server you have to pay for that somehow anyway.

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#59

Post by philwelch »

gecko wrote: post #14
teh wrote: post #6

Does anyone know whether fossil has a staging area? I tried but could not find it. Google didn't really help either.

Fossil does not have a staging area. Instead, like Mercurial, it encourages you to stash things you do not plan to commit.

Does it have a patch mode for stashing?

Use case: A commit should only do one thing at a time, but sometimes I'm not as organized. I like to do a whole mess of work and when I'm ready to commit it, I use git add --patch to separate out unrelated bits of work into separate commits--even if separate bits of work end up in the same file. It's amazing how much a load off your mind this is--you don't have to be quite as OCD while you're coding if you're a little fastidious about your commits later on.

Re: Fossil Versus Git

#60

Post by aconbere »

Scaevolus wrote: post #39
avar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as if rebase is commonly used. This is widly incorrect. Powerusers of Git use rebase extensively , pretty much every patch that makes it into Git itself has been rebased at least half a dozen times. I rewrite my history constantly, because when writing code I commit all the time, then I squash commits together later and give them proper commit messages. I wouldn't use any SCM tool that wouldn't give me this…

Agreed, without rebasing the history for projects with lots of developers quickly becomes a mess. > Fossil deliberately avoids rewriting history. Fossil strives to follow the accountants philosophy of never erasing anything. Mistakes are fixed by entering a correction, with an explanation of why the correction is needed. This can make the history of a project messy, but it also makes it more honest. I'm not sure how…

How do you get arround issues with sharing branches between devs while using rebase. The oddness of pushing your history over other devs makes rebase extremely backwards for me.
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