to git or not to git

[Bernhard E. Reiter]

Am Freitag 31 August 2018 13:03:22 schrieb Alessandro Rubini:
> > * Use hg or other trackers if you can.
>
> why? It's already oh so difficult to get people make decent commits to
> git, where at least I can point to all the world doing that...

* Because having a choice is good. If git is to became the only competitive
  SCM system, it is like putting all eggs in one basket. If there is anything
  that you do not like about git and you have not at least feed alternatives,
  you don't have a choice.
* You improve your skills, because now you can understand what is concept
  (distributed SCM) and what is implementation (git command), making you a
  better software engineer.
* It is better for innovation. Mercurial SCM has some areas where you could
  consider it better as git. Maybe not on an average, but for some groups
  or projects it is the better choice.
* To limit the network effects which drives people to help github earn money
  with proprietary services and hostring proprietary software development.
  Which in turn give them more money to outrun the Free Software competion,
  which ...

It is the same argument for trackers. 
Now you may just be 10% less efficient when using hg instead of git, because 
there is less tools support and less books. In two years you maybe 50% less 
efficient. So today the investment is bearable, it maybe too late in 2 years.

Of course you could be 10% better if going for hg when using its better 
features or becoming a better developer. :)
Here is a story where Facebook used Mercurial in 2013/2014 to get an advantage 
https://code.fb.com/core-data/scaling-mercurial-at-facebook/
(Facebook is also on github, in 2015 they were syncing a lot from Mercurial, I 
haven't follow the further development, but the point is an example for the 
principle).

Best Regards,
Bernhard

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