Thoughts on Git
So as per my previous summer goals list I had decided to move to using GIT instead of my current subversion server. Why I chose to do this was largely based on the fact that in the rails community GIT is almost a standard now and if I want to be able to add patches to plugins or post my own plugins on GitHub then I need to understand the basics of the system at least.
From start to finish the move from git to SVN took about 4 hours total. This may seem like a long time but honestly the biggest reason it took so long was that I had to install GIT on two macs and a linux machine and on the macs, installing via darwin ports took FOREVER. After getting everything installed, migrating the system via Git-Svn wasn’t bad at all and all my previous logs were still there so that’s a great benefit. As for my setup, I have an “origin” repo on my linux server and I cloned from that to the two macs that I primarily use for development. I then use git push and git pull to update the local repos.
Now for the impressions. First of all let me say that despite what I say here I like GIT. I do have some issues with it but overall I am definitely preferring GIT. As far the concerns I have they are mainly just getting used to the system. After committing changes I still have a hard time remembering to actually push the changes to the remote and a few times I have deployed a new update to my system and I couldn’t figure out why it didn’t work, only to find out that I never pushed my changes!
Despite my initial “issues” with GIT, it is a LOT better overall. If for no other reason that pure speed. Commits, clones, updates are all MUCH faster than Subversion. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why this is and I haven’t looked into it because quite frankly I’m happy with it. Its fast. Period. I’m sure there are plenty of other great reasons for switching to but as far as I’m concerned, this is enough for anyone.
When using subversion I can honestly say I never used branches. I tried, a few times, but I never could make it worth my time and get everything back together the way I wanted it. With GIT, branches are incredibly easy to do so I’ve actually started using them all the time now. Before when I was working on something that I knew would take quite a few changes to get working I wouldn’t commit those changes because if had something that needed to be fixed quickly then I wanted to be able to fix that issue and commit those changes without adding the “development” item I was working on. Now with GIT, when I start something new I just branch my code and work on it in a separate branch. If something comes up while I’m working I switch back to my master branch, branch off again to fix the new issue, join the trees when I have it working, push and deploy. All the while all my changes from my first branch are still there waiting for me to come back to them. It sounds complicated in theory but its awesome and has saved me a ton of time and made life a lot easier as far as doing development and updates at the same time.
Overall, GIT is definitely worth the initial jump to get it set up. In the end its faster, easier to branch and also has a smaller footprint on the system. The remote setup was a bit confusing but being able to have multiple remotes is also really cool. Anyone interested in making the moving, there are plenty of tutorials out there to assist in the move, this just hopefully gives you a reason to do so!