VCS comparison table

[Erik Bågfors]

On 10/21/06, Jakub Narebski <jnareb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sean wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 13:45:31 +0200
> > Jakub Narebski <jnareb at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Git cannot do that remotely (with exception of git-tar-tree/git-archive
> >> which has --remote option), yet. But you can get contents of a file
> >> (with "git cat-file -p [<revision>:|:<stage>:]<filename>"), list
> >> directory (with "git ls-tree <tree-ish>") and compare files or
> >> directories (git diff family of commands) without need for working
> >> directory.
> >
> > Interesting, I didn't know about the --remote option.  So in fact as long
> > as the remote has enabled upload-tar then anyone can do a "light
> > checkout".
>
> Not exactly. "Light checkout" (aka "lazy one-branch clone") in bzr
> contains also info about the repository it came from, and has some
> metadata that you can commit to it locally. git tar-tree --remote
> just gets snapshot.

No, a lightweight checkout doesn't have that.  A lightweight checkout
is basically just the latest revision checked out, a snapshot. For
everything else it needs to go the remote branch to get information.
You cannot commit locally on a "lightwieght checkout"

A "normal/heavyweight" checkout has the ability to commit locally.

/Erik