this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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Why use Git at all then? I thought the one reason why everyone wants to use Git these days are the forges.
Did you read the article? The author shares their perspective.
For me, Git is quite powerful on its own with version control, diffs, branches, merging, etc. Forges just add a UI for some of these things, and add an issue tracker/ discussion/etc. Forges also add a more modem ui for repo access though git does have its own webserver you can use. I use git without a forge for a number of my personal projects that I'm not sharing with others or not yet sharing
All version control systems do that, hence my question.
Git was conceived as a bazaar (because of its use for the Linux kernel), but most projects are more like cathedrals. In my opinion, Git is simply over-engineered for most projects. For projects that you don't want to share with others, even CVS would probably suffice...
Well just speaking for myself, i use git without a forge for personal stuff because i was already familiar with git and it fits my needs. No need to learn another version control system for some basic projects i throw together
The biggest thing git does is one person can get one or many branches (AKA version control) on ANY machine. They all act like they are the source of truth. CVS/~~Mercurial~~/etc...all have the issue that they expect to be on one machine as the source of truth. And if that machine ever goes down....
Before git (ya im old), I used a plethora of services like git. There were times back then when a server was down and the history....was just gone.
Mercurial is decentralised, there is no single “source of truth”. (Not counting “upstream”, of course.)
Huh interesting, maybe it was the way we used it 15-20+ years ago or maybe it changed. No clue. But yes you are correct.
Both Mercurial and Git started around the same time as a replacement for BitKeeper - which also was decentralised.
CVS is awful. Even for local use.
I agree, but subversion is awesome!
It sure is! Glad I'm not alone. :-)
Git experience is highly transferrable. Unless you have some specific use case not supported by Git, why wouldn't you use the one where the knowledge is most likely to carry over between projects/jobs?
I am one of those weirdos who prefer the best tool for a job, not the most popular one. And Git is - for me and my projects with exactly one branch ("trunk") and three or four other contributors, with me being the BDFL - the worst choice.
Still need to version control the work. No editor's undo buffer is a complete history of all changes
To track changes to a project. You know, the thing Git has been made for.
There is a difference between "not using a VCS" and "using Git".
Ha! No.
distributed, asynchronous collaboration and versioning.
Or do you wanna send zipped up sourcefiles "project_dev_0.9.6.2_developername_featureID.zip" per email to a dozen colleagues who then have to manually merge it into their current WIP?
There is a difference between "not using a VCS" and "using Git".
Let me make it clear to you then.
For it's VCS features.
You thought wrong. Git is not wanted exclusively for the forges, but also for it's VCS capabilities.
Which VCS capabilities make Git stand out in comparison to all other DVCSs if you don’t need a web UI?
Personally:
I am used to git. When I don't need the webUI, I would stick with git because it is already familiar to me.
Makes sense.