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POUsing git/mercurial on projects with continuous refactoring?
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copied!<p>I am trying to understand if I really have any case for using git/mercurial.</p> <p>The projects I work are java and c# projects, usually with 5-20 people working towards a common goal (the "release"). Most of the developers are professional developers who refactor code <em>all of the time</em>. So where the typical linux kernel has a large number of relatively independent changes in separate files, we have a constant flux of refactoring changes - often hitting a <em>lot</em> of files and a <em>lot</em> of code. No-one's scared of changing code here.</p> <p>Now with subversion we solve this by staying extremely close to SVN HEAD. Some of us even have automated svn up's that trigger on the build server's jabber broadcast. Most of us have also learned (or learn really quickly) how to plan our work to stay close to SVN HEAD. If you're doing a major refactoring we incrementally bend the source tree in a new direction instead of going away for too long. Sometimes you just plan the refactoring operation and start off in the less contended areas. After some years of working this way it becomes second nature. Most of us simply never leave the "comfort zone" of being less than 2 hours away from svn head. The automated build and svn head is the project "pulse" and we like it.</p> <p>Of course we branch off each release, but the number of backmerges from the release-branch back to trunk dwindle down quickly enough to be insignificant (we've got decent test coverage). Running off for days/weeks with private branches of the source sounds like something we actively want to discourage, and it simply doesn't happen very frequently.</p> <p>Both git and mercurial sound way cool, git slightly more so since I'm more a McGyver type than a James Bond type. But when it comes to building a case for actually switching, it feels like Linus and I are living on two different planets. Most of the time we <em>want</em> our teams to stay focused on HEAD. </p> <p>How can GIT make my version control better ? How would GIT let me improve my process ? Am I a subversion dinosaur ?</p>

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