Thursday, May 07, 2015

Why are you still using SVN?


I've worked in several large organisations who hate change and seem to have no idea about the current advances in tooling. Most large organisations seem stuck in a time warp, reliant on SVN, CVS and even PCVS. 

This makes these organisations unattractive as employers but that's another post.

So I'll expand this list over time, but here's some simple reasons to move to git
  • Branching: SVN branching is complex. Merging branches is difficult if not impossible. Git was designed for easy branching and controlled merging that works with a community of developers.
  • Stashing:  and quick fixes via stashing. 
  • Performance: check-ins are local, push/pull to remote repos is compressed and multi-streamed
  • Distributed source repos: Every developer has a copy which removes single point of failure. This makes it highly redundant guaranteeing availability 
  • Security: With a bit of effort, you can alter your history with SVN/CVS by manipulating the metadata files. With Git, all deltas are hashed.