Re: [Monotone-devel] Comparison of Monotone and git

[William Uther]

On 18/06/2008, at 11:04 PM, Jack Lloyd wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 05:22:33PM +1000, William Uther wrote:
> > I have more research to do on git, but as a first pass have I missed
> > anything someone considers important?  (BTW, I don't want to get  
> > into tiny
> > little details here...  I mentioned "considers important" for a  
> > reason :) )
>
> git can rename and delete branches, monotone can't (easily).

It's pretty easy to delete a branch in monotone; either
  - just make a new database and sync all the other branches across.   
Or delete all the branch certs.  This method just deletes the branch  
locally.  Or,
  - suspend the branch.  See 'mtn help suspend'.  This doesn't delete  
the branch as such, but it hides it.

To rename a branch you just propagate the old branch to the new branch  
and suspend the old branch, no?  People could still commit to the old  
branch - tell them not to (and set up a branch name filter on your  
main repository so they can't).

The interesting part here is that Monotone has a global namespace for  
branches, whereas git has a local namespace for branches.  By default  
in git you get a 1:1 local:remote branch name mapping, but you can  
rearrange that if you wish.  This removes the need for centralised  
control of branch naming (policy branches) - it is all just local.

> I know
> about http://www.venge.net/mtn-wiki/BranchRenaming, but it seems like
> that doesn't really work very nicely. (Adding these smell very policy
> branch-ish).


Looks like they were written before suspend certs.

Cheers,

Will       :-}