VCS comparison table

[Matthieu Moy]

Jakub Narebski <jnareb at gmail.com> writes:

> While email can be used to exchange patches (git-format-patch to 
> generate patches, git-send-mail to send patches if you don't want to 
> use ordinary email client, git-am to apply patches) it cannot be used 
> to exchange all information (one cannot send for example tags, or merge 
> commits).

In bzr, the "bundle" appears like a patch, but it actually contain the
same information as the revision(s) it contains (I believe this
applies to hg and Darcs too). A bundle can be used almost like a
branch. That's a key point, since revision identity is not based on
content's hash, so applying a patch is very different from merging a
bundle.

> It is very usefull tool to have for "accidental" developer.

That's the key point, but patch review for non-accidental developpers
is also good :-).

> BTW. git can provide binary patch for binary files (e.g. adding favicon 
> for gitweb in git.git).

Bazaar's bundle use base64 encoding for binaries. I don't think that's
efficient binary diff (xdelta-like) though. Aaron has been fighting
quite a lot with MUA and MTA mixing up the patches (line ending in
particular) ...

-- 
Matthieu